From: rickg@netcom.com (Rick Gordon)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Peevetown General Hospital: Take 3
Date: 6 Nov 92 19:13:06 GMT
Followup-To: alt.peeves
Organization: Netcom - SF Bay, Cal Northifornia


One of the very few nice things about being victimized by a life-threatening
Event while in the care of medical professionals is that they should have
seen this sort of thing before, and should therefore know What To Do to
stabilize the situation.  There are associated risks, also.

As I struggled to get oxygen into my lungs and failed, I could read the
minds of the arrayed team of caregivers who were at that moment shifting
into Crisis mode.  Get the right-sized trachea tube ready to force a
passage through the recalcitrant larynx, keep the scalpel warm in case
we need to do a gorily dramatic tracheotomy, that sort of thing.  I was
aware of these preparations around me, but was not wholly absorbed by
them, as my attention was at the moment more or less monopolized by the
effort to force a relaxation of the musculature which had spasmed shut
my airway.  I held up my right hand to fend off any heroic ministrations
as the constriction eased minutely, and very annoyingly gradually.  Within
another thirty seconds or so I could get air in, at about the rate one
could achieve with one's face buried in a large bowl of linguini.  Good
enough to keep the knife at bay.

Following this performance the staff moved quickly to clear the administrative
ways for an immediate admission to a semi-private room for me to spend the
night in.  I was given a large injection of some steroid derivative to
immediately reduce the grotesque inflammation and swelling around my trachea
which, by that time, was determined to be a contributing cause of my
discomfort.  I was wheeled around for X-rays of chest and throat and was
given a handy stopcock sort of thing which attached to a vein in the back
of my hand, allowing bags of antibiotics to be dripped into me over the
next few days without the need for additional punctures for each new
course.

I was taken to room directly opposite one of the nurses' stations on the
second floor.  I shared it with a patient who had survived some unknown
surgery, and who was invisible to me behind a screen.  Disposable EKG
electrodes were stuck to my chest and connected to a transmitter made
by Hewlett Packard, about the size of a Walkman.  This device would make
my heart-related vital signs known to anyone interested enough to look at
a monitor across the hall, and would presumably cause a racket should
anything interesting happen.  Tubes carrying oxygen were eased into my
nostrils, I was given a new bag of drugs to drip into my easily-accessed
veins.

By this time it was after midnight, and apart from the multi-pitched
bleepings from the various science projects around me it was quiet.  I
looked forward to getting some sleep, and said so to the night nurse who
assured me she would be round to check on me several times during the
night.  I said good night to my wife, who then left to go home.  It
wasn't dark in the room, and wouldn't be, as the door to the hallway had
to be left open, but the light didn't bother me.  I was exhausted by all
the unanticipated activity of the evening, and looked forward to closing
my eyes and sleeping soundly until morning.

Within five minutes Mr. Graham in the next bed made the first exploratory
wheeze, then the first cough.  The long night had begun, my hopes of any
sleep at all were beginning already to fade.

Next: Trapped alongside the tortures of the damned, the mind wanders.

-- 
Rick Gordon      | "She Broke My Heart So I Busted Her Jaw" 
rickg@netcom.com |   --- One of those country songs you never hear anymore
Newsgroups: alt.peeves