Tales from the ER: Had any fun there?

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This is a topic which can be about being in the ER as a patient or personnel, diapered or not. Just a disclaimer… :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

25 years ago, I was working at a jobsite on an oppressively-hot summer day. By evening, we were cleaning up, ready to go home: I began my scrap patrol to make things tidy for the next day…unknowingly, that would be my last workday for a short time. I went to one room, began picking up handfuls of trash to put in my roll-away can behind me. While squatted, I pivoted to the right to dump my handful of rubbish. That’s where the trouble began… :astonished:

I tried to get up but only one leg would work: my right. Grasping the trash can edge, I hefted myself up on my right foot…and discovered my left leg was locked in a bent position with an odd feeling of fullness in the knee. “Lar!!!”

Larry came a-runnin’, fast because he sensed my the tone this was no ordinary problem…and it wasn’t. He stared at me, looking at me like the flamingo :flamingo: I felt like. With his upbeat voice, he remarked “What’s goin’ on here?”

“My knee locked up! I don’t know why and I can’t break it loose!” And I tried everything to help it along to that end…but nothing worked. Not for about 45 seconds anyway, until it did it on its own. And it hurt! :zap: I instantly collapsed to the (thankfully-padded) floor, rolling around in agony, holding my knee, grimacing in intense pain. I recalled then and there that the human knee is told to perhaps be the most sensitive body part in an injury. They could’ve worded it more persuasively because the pain was telling its own story…and with colors God has no names for yet. That’s how bad it was.

After several minutes, the pain lessened, I managed to get on my feet. I was sweaty, miserable, drained by the pain & rolling around. The last of the rubbish got picked up, put in the can and in the back of the work truck. We all parted ways as the sun was getting lower :sunrise:, I got into my '84 Escort hatchback with 4-speed…and noticed my knee was not happy doing clutch, even though it was an easy clutch. But I only had ten miles to go, so off we went. The pain increased gradually during the trip home until finally I got home and noticed three things: (a) it was almost impossible to put weight on the knee, (2) the knee had swollen noticeably (I was wearing shorts) and (d) my wife & kids were gone, announced by the absence of their '84 Escort wagon. Kitty-corner across the street was a corner mart, and I’m sure they had ice :ice_cube: so I limp-hopped across, bought a bag of ice, hop-limped back, up those steps, into the apartment. Close the door, sit against the wall, ice my knee…and wait…

…and wait…and wait… :stopwatch:

As I was nodding off, the familiar sound of an Escort wagon outside. The closing of doors. The sound of footsteps. The door opens…and there was my wife, with our son by her side and our daughter in her arms :family_woman_girl_boy: . She looked at me, then the ice bag: “Why is there ice on your knee?” I lifted the bag, revealing a knee the size of a volleyball :volleyball:. She went instantly wide-eyed and white :o_O:. She arranged for an emergency babysitter, who got there in minutes; they both painfully loaded me in the wagon and off we went. :ambulance:

Once there, an orderly was summoned to bring a wheelchair :manual_wheelchair:. Being unloaded and chaired up was agonizing but it got done as the last rays of the sun were visible. In we went, everyone was looking at me, my knee…and giving off horrified looks :astonished: :sick:. Into an ER suite, tout-suite, hefted up onto the bed with one yell of pain…then all was still. My now-ex was there, and it seemed we had no time to chat before an ER doc :man_health_worker: walked in. It was a slow night there, he said, and he looked at my knee quickly, whistling lowly. So we talked about how it happened…and what was gonna get done. The latter consisted of iodining the knee :syringe:, Novocaining all around :syringe:and getting a 50cc syringe with horse-needle :syringe: to drain out the pooled blood inside the knee in what Doc called a “knee effusion”.

I went instantly white this time. Needles! :scream: The doc looked at me, then my ex; she said “he has problems with needles”, so Doc looked at the nurse :woman_health_worker: and without a word nodded; likewise, she nodded back and left the suite, as did he a moment later. Three minutes later, the nurse returned with a small tray, upon which was a syringe :syringe:; she painfully rolled me onto my front, swabbed a spot on my bottom with alcohol…jab! “Lay still, Sweetie, this will help. It’s Demerol.”

Demerol. I ***love ***Demerol! The Millennium has arrived! :partying_face::partying_face::partying_face::partying_face: And five minutes later, I just didn’t care anymore. And life was beautiful :relieved:. Remember those colors I told you God has no names for yet? I saw 'em again. :o_O: My ex, the nurse and Doc were laughing hysterically as I humored through the ordeal, feeling very much like Kate Costas on the *Frasier *episode after the lizard bit off her fingertip…isn’t that a funny word…“episode”? :ROFLMAO: Then up went the knee, under it a pillow or two, Nursey swabbed the knee with iodine, Docky injected the Novocaine, which gave me almost-instant relief. Now life was good! :partying_face: I propped up my head, no longer in terror, even laughing as Doc uncapped that massive needle in front of me. I laughed…and felt absolutely nothing as the needle went into my knee, which would’ve terrified me had I not been given a happy-shot; instead, I was fascinated and watched as Doc plunged in four times, drawing out four full syringefuls of blood and knee fluid.

“Doc?”

“Yeah?”

“This knee pain,” I queried, “is it an-y-thing com-par…comp-a-ble…com-pla…like la-bor pain?” I still felt bad for getting my wife pregnant and putting her through all that.

“It’s about as close as you’ll ever get.” :unsure:

I exhaled. “Thank yoooouuuu…and I’m sor-ry, Deeear!” More laughter. The procedure was now over and the humor monologue resumed. It was dark outside :night_with_stars:. I didn’t care. I *so *love Demerol…it was a great vacation. And I hadn’t even noticed they’d mummified my knee .

Doc came back a bit later with my discharge, care instructions and crutches. He wanted me to be off my leg for two weeks. I couldn’t afford that, and despite the Demerol, logic returned long enough for a negotiation: “One week.”, followed by “No, two.” And repeat…

“Doc,” I slurred woozily, “howww much is my billlll?”

“Oh, about three hundred and eighty. Why do you ask?” :money_with_wings:

“Tell ya wwwhat: If yooouuuu say ‘one week’, I-will-pay-my bill-riiiiight now. I have ze cash. But: if you insist on twooo, I have to keep the $3,080 :rofl: to…somehow make ends meet for the month as well as…as well as wonder how-how I’ll pay y’all off. Can’t-we-find-some-kind-a-hap-py-here?” :pleading_face:

Doc stopped talking, thought, probably more for act than earnest. “Okay, you got one week, No less!” :partying_face:

I thanked him as he handed me my crutches, made my way up a bit tipsily, got back on three and we were off to billing then home :house_with_garden:. And one week later…I was okay. :muscle:

Your turn!

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I don’t think that I’ve ever had owt that could be called fun in a sickhouse, but I feel your knee pain.

Back as a teenogre, I used to do some martial arts, including kickboxing. During one sparring session, I got accidentally elbowed in the knee (right on the side of the kneecap, in the fleshy bit). It’s been a pain on and off ever since.

It did improve, though, after one clang in the mid-to-late nineties whilst working on a warehouse electrical installation (up and down stepladders all day, with lightfittings, etc). I accidentally slammed my door on my knee as I jumped out of the car to get some butties from the butty wagon (yes, I’m small and sprightly enough to literally jump out like that…or, I was :worried:).

There were people about, so I couldn’t show my agony :rofl:

Then, back to work :dizzy_face:

In the years following the car door thing, I noticed that the stabbing pain in my knee, under strain, lessened and periodic flare-ups were fewer.

I became even sprightlier :grin:

Not that that was always a good thing:

In the late nineties, I was busying myself in removing a snapped bleednipple from a brake caliper of my car. It was typically raining, so I worked at the backdoor of the house, under the eves. As is even more typical, the extractor tool snapped inside the snapped nipple.

Around this point, my mum and dad went out, leaving me home alone :scream:

After snapping what drill-bits I had (it’s a snappy tale, huh?), I began to make headway with good-old bashing and scraping with anything that would fit and my spirits were lifting, and I got keen and sprightly in bouncing back and forth from toolbox to caliper, over the door’s uPVC threshold.

On a bounce into the kitchen, where my toolbox was, with it’s up-pointing lids, my foot misplaced onto the wet threshold rather than the concrete step, and I ended up with my legs in the air, arms outstretched floorwards and looking at the edge of the toolbox’s lid getting bigger.

My right hand went right onto the corner of the lid, almost with full penetration.

Brilliant!

Obviously, that’s not enough to ring an ambulance for, so I waited to see if my parents would come home, for to get a lift to hospital.

And I waited.

I eventually got a taxi, though not having enough money for it, but the driver let me off (cheers, Drive!).

The ‘fun’ in this came whilst waiting in casualty and with a waiting time of two hours, reports started coming in of a car going around the area with it’s occupants randomly shooting people.

Everybody who was waiting was watching the ‘waiting time’ on the blackboard, and every so often, a nurse would hurry out and ammend the time upwards.

It got to 24 hours and eventually they told everybody that casualty was closed until the further notice. By this time, we were seeing the victims being trollied in through the emergency entrance.

There was then a collective sigh of exasperation, a fumbling chaos of mobile phones and a rush for the single, out-of-order payphone :rofl:

Some bloke lent me his mobile and, luckily, my parents had returned home by then.

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Instant classic :joy:

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Or there was the time I gashed my left middle-finger knuckle and the Doc was wrapping it up in a straight-up splint. I commented “Perfect! That’s my free-hand as I drive!” :rofl:

He was somewhat amused…

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I could write a novel. almost. Its been years but last time I was in an ER, I had fallen 15-30 feet on my head. I dont remember most of it, it get sense like memories. I remember on the last day of my stay I could hear someone getting intubated, I knew he was getting intubated from the sounds and words the staff was using with hime, and it made me ill sick to my stomach. I found out much later that when they intubated me, I went into my third status seizure that day. So I think parts of my body remember the intubation procedure quite well.

I was in the hospital for 20 days, it sucked, they took my phone away and I was labeled mentally incompetent and a ward of the state. I had achieved legal childhood status in a manner of speak, and I hated it. I threw a temper tantrum like fit one night after telling a doctor that the security had roughed me up and he dismissed my claims. My temper tantrum resulted in the same security guards I had complained about coming to my bed and putting me in very effective restraints, and a nurse sedating me, she was nice and kinda baby talked me as I protested, the shot knocked me out before the needle left the vein

I also had to have people walk me to the potty and help me sit down, they put a belt on around my chest to help hold me up and keep me from falling. I wasn’t allowed to step out of bed on my own. They tried very hard to convince my real Mom and me that the next stop for me was a group home, I needed to go to my home though, I had my dogs to care for, and a part of me was terrified of having to live in a group home and more of the rules and not having my comforts, I didn’t sleep well at the hospital, I dont remember wanting my diapers, but I felt uncomfortable with the threat of living in a group home and not having my diapers, even if I didn’t need them at any point that I can remember in the hospital, I did however soak the bed my first night home, I didn’t think I need a diaper at that point, but I was on a ton of meds so it was back to diapers, and that wasn’t easy either as I was in a cervical collar and had one broken wrist, so I couldn’t see where I was placing the tapes and I only had one good hand… Maybe a group home would have helped in this department, I was desperate enough to even ask a friend for help with the tapes but he thankfully said NO, I got ok at diapering with only one arm, but its not perfect.

Sometimes I wish my brain injury had given me incontinence, its not uncommon, but most of the people with TBI who had incontinence issues had a potty training schedule that I was happy to avoid. My rehab group that I went to a year after I got hurt was like an adult day care program, most of the people there were living in group homes. There was a few that lived with families. Only a few wore diapers, I remember one older Chinese man had cloth diapers on under his sweat pants, at least I assume that’s what the bulge he had was from. I remember the odd feeling of wearing a diaper under my pants and watching adults being taken to the potty for potty training, I felt kinda naughty I guess. I dint get to go to the daycare program for long, the insurance didn’t like paying for the car ride, I lived an hour away from the city with the rehab.

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One of the things that sticks out the most from that time, is when I asked an older friend (he was the dad of one of my friends from high school) anyways he was talking to me on my first or so day back from the coma, and I asked him “why can’t I see out of my right eye?” I asked it rather mater of factly, but his response was one of shock and horror. The hospital told me my sight would return in a few days or weeks, but that was a lie, I lost most of the vision in my right eye from a huge blood blister in my skull, that crushed my right optic nerve. I believe they fix this with stem cells in a few years.

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I had to pass a verbal test to get my rights back as an adult, they lined up a panel of doctors to ask me questions like 100-6, and minus 6, and minus 6, etc I got as far as 82 I think before I couldn’t do anymore math. That was terrifying too, the first sign where started to really comprehend that I had brain damage. That and they gave me a few words to remember, changed the subject and then asked me what words I was supposed to remember, I could only remember 2 of the 3. My memory has since improved but it still is very unreliable.

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