EWK
10:17pm Saturday, April 14, 2018
There was a huge rainstorm in Seattle that evening. I started to regain consciousness right before they put me in the ambulance. It was raining so hard and I just felt light rain on my face and body…and then the rain got more and more intense. All of a sudden I am conscious. I don’t know where I am but this sweet kind man is literally on top of me saying, “ Hi Beth, can you hear me? Can you hear me?”. I could…but I couldn’t speak…for a while.
It was the strangest feeling. I wanted to say, “yes I am okay but who the hell are you and where am I?” but I couldn’t. I just stared at him and blinked. Like they do in the movies. I swear at that moment I felt like I was in a horribly bad made for TV movie. It would be so much better than being my actual life.
We pulled into the ER at U of W. Wow, lets give a shout out to EVERY ONE who works in an ER in a City with way too many homeless people and drug addicts and mentally ill people. It is so sad and so upsetting…and it felt like half of these souls were in the ER that late Saturday night.
Because they knew I had just had a craniotomy they put me in a private room in the ER. To hear the folks yelling and screaming and retching outside my door was absolutely unbelievable. I mean it was CRAZY! I was scared, because I didn’t know what really happened, and I was SCARED because I was afraid someone was going to bust into our room. Bodies were lining the walls of the hallway. These amazing angels called Orderlies, Nurses, Doctors…. swarming about.
There is not enough help. They are making comments like “it must be a full moon tonight” because it was so busy.
Will arrived behind the ambulance and was brought into my room. Ugh. The look on his face; his eyes and mine welling up with tears. This was too much. I felt so badly for what had happened. A grand mal seizure. It was really too much. He is so kind and so wonderful – and this poor guys is being put through the ringer on a level that is well, unfair. He didn’t deserve this.
He just stood there, held my hand…and when the horrible noises from the bodies outside our door were too much, and the nurse had said it was going to be a while and to try to get some rest (I was already hooked up on two IV’s thanks to my ambulance attendant) he just closed the door and turned off the lights. He snuggled up next to me on my hospital bed and we tried to sleep. It was going to be a long night.
Will called my mom – who had witnessed the scene after being awakened by a total stranger – our friend Jim. Her bedroom faces our street – vs. the view in the back. So with no hearing aids in she is awakened and all she can see through the windows are multiple vehicles with flashing and spinning red lights. And one very large fire truck.
Jim introduced himself and my mom said, “is the house on fire?” to which Jim said no, the house is okay, it’s your daughter. She quickly put on her robe and walked out of her room, only to see 4 firemen, 3 EMT and 2 ambulance drivers in our upstairs hallways and me being brought out of my room on a tarp in my pajamas, barefoot and unconscious and taken down the stairs. She was silent (all of this of course from Will). She just looked at him and said, “What do you need me to do”.
What do you need me to do.
Yes, my mom rocks. She sees her youngest daughter being carried away just nine days after surgery. She is not hysterical, she doesn’t make it about herself crying and panicking and being dramatic. She doesn’t fire off a boatload of questions to Will. She just stands there silent. Calm (or in shock – half because she had been awakened from a deep sleep and the other half because of what she was seeing before her very eyes). She looked at my husband and asked what to do.
Will had her go into our bedroom to sleep. That way when the kids awaken they won’t be alone and she would have the fantastic job of having to tell the kids that Mom wasn’t feeling well so Daddy took her to the doctor.
Back at the ER, about an hour later one of my ADORABLE doctors from just the week before walks in the door. Seriously, Will laughs telling the story. My face lit up! OMG he was so stinking cute it was insane! He is Doctor McDreamy! Will just laughs. He is also 27 or 28…first year resident!
Then the Chief Fellow for Neurosurgery, John, entered. This guy is going places. He carries himself with such confidence yet he is not cocky. He is thoughtful, and intentional with his words.
I texted Dr. Patel (because he is that awesome he was brave enough to give me his cell phone number!) to let him know I was in the emergency room. I didn’t hear back.
John, the Chief Fellow said he was admitting me and going to get me into a room on the oncology floor. I said nothing. We started to talk and he asked us to recount what happened. He then asked if we had met with Dr. Patel yet to discuss the pathology of the tumor. To which we responded no. No he hadn’t. We were to meet with him Monday. He smiled and said that sounded perfect.
He left the room and I looked at Will and said, “I’m screwed”. Post Op –they were so perplexed by Polly – the shape, the form, and the size that they changed their language from tumor to mass. Now we were reverting back to tumor. The pathology was absolutely in…we just decided to wait for our Monday in face meeting. But John, the Chief Fellow, is part of all those tumor boards, and I am one of his patients.
Being moved to oncology ward. Hear more about the tumor on Monday. Yep, it was a zebra…not a horse.
Why Not Me 