The Hospital: Part Four

One thing I didn’t like about Dr. Clawson is she was always admitting me to the hospital. If there was any question about my health and my blood levels she would admit me to the hospital more often than not. Normally when I am admitted to the hospital we walk across the sky walk connecting my doctor’s office to the hospital. I liked walking the skywalk and looking out over the city. I would look out and see Weber State University and watch cars pull in and out of the parking lot. Watching the cars fascinated me, I wondered about the people in those cars. Is that a doctor pulling up, coming in to save a life or perform a surgery? Is it a nurse who is pulling up after dropping her kids off to school, who will now be comforting her patients? Or is it patient who is feeling as sick as me who is parking? Is that a family member leaving after a long night holding a vigil over their loved one? There are so many people in the hospital, with so many different roles to play, so many different stories, and so many different struggles. Looking out the window was a good way for me to delay the inevitable. I would mosey across the walkway, getting in the way of busy doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals, rushing about to whatever patient or meeting they needed to get to next. My parents would urge me along down the highway towards my impending doom.

The inside of the hospital looked just like the outside, white. White walls, white tiles, with various silver medical instruments ready for the medical professionals to use on patients. Today I don’t walk down that walkway, instead my dad carries me out to the car again and drives me to the new hospital. Although this hospital is bigger than my old hospital, somehow it doesn’t seem to tower over me quite as threatening as the old hospital did. This hospital has a softer brown color to the outside of it and looks more friendly and inviting. The inside looked warm and inviting with an open ceiling that showed all the floors. The fourth floor was the pediatrics floor and was where we headed. If we had time I would sit down with my dad on a bench or a chair and my dad would feel my arms for good veins and then put EMLA crème on them and covered the crème with a Tagaderm band aid. Butterflies would fill my stomach as my arms were prepared for the eventual needle. The EMLA crème sickly sweet smell mingled with the faint dried glue smell emanating from the Tagederm. The anticipation built up with every passing moment. I hoped and prayed every time for some miracle to prevent me from having to get an IV or blood draw. I always hoped and prayed that someday they would figure out a way to deliver my medication and run tests without having to poke me. The miracle never happened.

I would be assigned to a hospital room and then lay on a hospital bed. Hospital beds are lumpy, the sheets are itchy, the blanket is itchy, and the pillow is lumpy. I like how the beds can sit me up so that I can see what is going on while using less energy. Less energy is good. A nurse comes in my room and takes off the Tagaderm and cleans off the EMLA crème. She feels my arm for a vein and after finding a good one asks me if I want her to start the IV now or after she counts to five. It was a mistake to ask me that. Now I can begin my master stalling plan. I automatically start saying “Count until five.” And then as the nurse gets ready to start the IV I continue to say “No, not yet. Count until five again. Five more minutes. I’m not ready yet. Wait a little longer. I don’t want to do it.” I would stall, whine, cry, bawl, kick, scream, bargain, hit, hyperventilate and do anything that I could to prevent the IV from being started. It didn’t matter how low my blood levels were and how tired I was the moment a needle entered my hospital room I would enter “fight or flight mode”. And as I put off the IV start, the anticipation would build more and more with every passing moment. My stomach would drop, my arms would tense and tingle as I anticipated the pain. My breath would become more shallow and would quicken. Panic always set in. To me getting an IV started was pure torture and what made it worse is that it was torture that I wasn’t allowed to fight. I would beg for the smallest needle possible and never believed the nurses when they told me they were giving me the smallest needle possible. My parents would try to hold me down and calm me down, but they always ended up telling the nurse to go ahead with the IV start regardless of my protests. Partly because I would fight so hard and partly because my veins were so tiny I almost always got poked more than one time to try and start an IV or get a good blood draw. I never trusted anyone to get my IV started or to draw my blood. Today I got my IV started with all the fight, anticipation, and panic that normally accompanied my IV starts. After my IV was put in I always kept my arm as straight as possible so that my IV wouldn’t come out.

And then I slept.

Finally.