What I learnt from my late-night emergency visit to hospital
Rosie Hersch, 68, is a retired pharmacist, whose hobbies include studying, cooking and theatre. Her biggest passion is travel and like the song says, “I've been everywhere man (well almost).”
We’ve all had that déjà vu feeling and this was my latest. There I was one early evening in January watching a WWII film, the award-winning The Pianist. The Germans were firing at the resistance fighters in the Warsaw ghetto and the resistance fighters were valiantly holding the fort with weapons that had been smuggled into the ghetto that were really no match for the Nazi fire power. People were being shot at close range, blood was spurting everywhere when suddenly I noticed a trickle down my face. Soon that became a pouring torrent gushing from my nose. I yelled to my husband Peter to get me a cloth with ice, struggling to speak as blood was also pouring down the back of my throat. With the background noise of grenade blasts and machine gun firing coming from the television for a split second I was in another place, a surreal world and a thought flashed through my mind that this was not happening. The blood did not stop streaming from my face and 15 minutes later Peter knew he had to call an ambulance. I have heard many stories of ambulances not coming for hours but my guys arrived within seven minutes. They took one look at this blood soaked woman and said, “Right you are going to Cabrini Hospital,” which is fortunately only two kilometres from home.
I have never been in an ambulance so the ride to the hospital felt like a dream. The bleeding had become so much more intense that when we arrived at emergency the ambos demanded I be seen straight away. I never did get to thank these guys. They were so professional, sympathetically reassuring and respectful, not to mention very handsome.
A lovely looking young doctor, probably the same age as my youngest son-in-law and with very similar looks, came immediately to my aid. Though I was extremely stressed and anxious I still had the usual “Rosie inquisitive pharmacy trait” to ask 20 questions of the doctor. “Where did you study medicine?” was question number one. Of course my voice was rather muffled as I was holding a blood soaked gauze, squeezing the bridge of my nose as instructed and gagging on the blood sliding down the back of my throat.
He told me he studied in Scotland. This intrigued me as he had no Scottish accent. “Just a minute,” I said, “Where is your accent?” “My hometown is in England,” he replied with a smile and a wink.
While he was spraying local anaesthetic into my nostrils, using tongs to widen the opening so he could see where to cortarise the burst vessels a nurse tried in vain (pun intended) to get a blood sample from a vein on the top of my right hand. “Oh no,” she said “I have collapsed the vein and have to try somewhere else.” My hand blew up immediately into a bubbly bruise which will take weeks to correct itself.
Meanwhile the local anaesthetic hit the back of my throat as if it was not bad enough drowning in blood I now had this acrid foul taste in my mouth. Doc was then coming at me with a silver nitrate stick to burn and fuse the broken capilleries. Meanwhile nurse ratchet was poking the inside of my right elbow as if I was a pin cushion. Doc Drew saw what a mess she was making so when she had drawn only some blood he said, “That will be enough”, to which she replied, “but you wanted for more other samples?” He thankfully said, looking into my eyes, “That will do nurse.” Thank God, I thought.
So Dr Drew instilled the silver nitrate stick. Not only did it not stop the bleeding, I had a stinging feeling from my eye tooth right up my cheek and the blood was now all over the white hospital gown and the doctor. This procedure had to be done twice more before the bleeding stopped. I had lost a considerable amount of blood. And if that wasn’t enough the doctor then said I need to insert an IV drip needle into the other inside elbow because if bleeding reoccurs we can quickly connect a drip containing adrenaline to cause vasoconstriction. Gratefully he was not going to leave that procedure to the nurse. As he put the needle in I could feel blood trickling down my arm and felt him wipe it off. So there I now was a little calmer with a few pinholes in my body and having been changed twice out of blood stained hospital gowns.
It was now 9.30 pm, and I was told I was being admitted to a ward overnight for observation. At 1.15am I was finally wheeled out of the bright lights of emergency, far away from the woman in the next cubicle who had been vomiting and dry retching all night and a couple of children distressed and crying. Their suffering made me quite upset. We arrived at 1 North to be greeted by this very tall skinny black guy and in the dark the whites of his eyes glowed. Again as he took my obs I queried him on where he had come from. He was well spoken and quite amazing looking and said Sudan.
I tried to sleep but of course there were the usual disturbances from other patients in this four bed ward. Then there were the bright lights in the hallway, the distant sounds of patient buzzers going off intermittently, the nurses taking our obs, and of course those wonderfully comfortable hospital beds where one slips and slides on crisp white sheets, and lumpy pillows.
The next morning 7am came and the joint was jumping. First off the rank a new set of obs taken, followed by the water ladies bringing fresh jugs and glasses, followed by the cleaners, followed by the lady wheeling in a computer on a stand taking meal orders, followed by someone delivering newspapers, followed by a man making up the beds, followed by the delivery of brekki, then someone else with the coffee made in the corridor on an actual espresso machine that she wheeled along on another stand (it was great coffee by the way). This was followed shortly after by another woman wanting my morning tea order and finally a woman handing out cards for those seeking the wisdom and comfort of a religious person, in my case a visit from a Rabbi or some other learned orthodox person. It was only 8.30am. Then there was the constant stream of physiotherapists, doctors and specialists visiting the ward including my physician and haematologist and later a gorgeous ENT specialist giving me instruction on what to do in the event of another occurrence. No wonder hospitals like Cabrini are the most expensive in this country.
While waiting for Peter to pick me up at my discharged time of 2pm I pondered the fact of how lucky I am that I can afford private insurance and the silver service of this hospital. Sure beats a public hospital and I realised two things from this experience, firstly how life can change in a split second and secondly how lucky I am to have such a caring supportive husband and family, the fabric of a most fortunate a life.
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