There’s Nothing Like a Little Visit to the ER to…

There’s nothing like a little visit to the emergency room — make that one urgent care office and two emergency rooms — to remind you not to sweat the small stuff. Small stuff like weight gain, dirty dishes in the sink, unpacked moving boxes. Everyday worries melt away when faced with the machinery of the medical profession, the packed waiting room in a hospital ER, or a nurse wiring you up for an EKG and another, trying to get a needle into a runaway vein to take some blood and set up an IV.

There’s nothing like the lead up to your decision to go — when you have things to get done, when you tell yourself you’re just fine, when you have no doctor or PA, and no idea what to do except pick a doc-in-the-box or an ER. Unfortunately, when you start over in a new place, you may have no clue where the hospitals actually are much less which of those facilities are any good, or if you stand a chance of being seen as the hours wear on.

There’s nothing like going on faith — because at least you can still count on that — when it comes to planning a major move in your life — a fresh start, a restart, a new chapter; call it whatever you like. But you know that the equation is a tough one to resolve: The optimal combination of work opportunities, manageable cost of living, transportation options, housing options, socializing potential, and inevitable medical care — we all need something eventually — will require trade-offs.

Most of us cannot find a perfect place to live where all of the above will work out.

That ER visit? Or rather, my little tale of a trip to one urgent care office and two hospital emergency rooms?

Let’s just say… yesterday was not the day I planned.

My list of “what was I thinking” items on which I mused recently should have included the following. All the physical work I’ve done these past months, and more so before the holidays — lifting boxes, bending and unpacking boxes, moving furniture, reaching, cleaning — I could feel the strain on my back, on my bad shoulder, the increasing pain.

I am one of the millions of people who live with chronic pain. I am accustomed to it. I shelve it in my mind; my mind (and typing fingers) remain more than capable of doing work — marketing work, content creation work, writing and editing work — from my laptop in a home office and at times, propped on pillows with two heating pads wrapped around my lower back and behind one shoulder as I work from bed.

But when pain moves to other places in strange (unsettling) ways, when limbs go weak, when dizziness sets in out of nowhere — (initially, days ago, I thought I might be having a migraine) — that seems like cause for alarm. The truth is… it takes a lot for me to feel alarmed with regard to my health. It takes a lot to get me to go to the doctor beyond an annual physical. It takes a lot to scare me. And to go to an emergency room because Google after Google and phone call after phone call during a holiday week can’t nab me an available physician?

That takes even more.

But how to get there? Where to go? Which office or hospital?

I texted the realtor who helped me find the apartment I’m renting. I was lucky she was around. She texted back suggestions. Several I had already tried and they were a no go. (Offices were closed or the only appointment I could get was two to three weeks out; I was told, “go to the emergency room.”)

An hour later, my realtor got in her car, drove 30 minutes, picked me up and took me to an urgent care facility. They told me to go to the ER. We picked the nearest one. After registering in a jammed waiting room where there was nowhere to sit (someone eventually made a spot for me), the minutes ticked on and it became clear it would be hours before I would be seen, so we left. We Googled to find another (smaller) hospital. We headed there — and found an empty waiting room. I was taken back behind the magic curtain within five minutes, and cue the questions asked, a gown to put on, an identifying bracelet attached, a needle into my arm and another needle into my wrist, blood pressure taken… and so on.

I was scared. I was wheeled off for a cat scan. My wrist throbbed from the IV attachment. I was moved from one gurney to another. My head was adjusted and I was told not to move as the odd machine whirred above me. To calm myself I closed my eyes, slowed my breathing, and in doing so these words streamed into my consciousness, replaying over and over: Greet everything, greet everything, greet everything.

These were the words of an artist friend, words he used to explain the way he lived his life, words expressed some 20 years ago at my kitchen table in my old house in my old life as a married mother of two.

That existence seems like a dream, a million miles away, a different universe; yet the fact that my friend’s advice returned to reassure me is itself reassuring; these are brave words that remind us of the breadth of human experience and the necessity to embrace it for whatever positive lessons may be gleaned. To live more fully. And, as an artist (or creative), to use the experience. To make something good of it.

Let’s just skip ahead to the end of the story, at least, to the end for now.

My brain is intact, my arm and wrist are sore from needles, and I need to find a new physician, a new orthopedist, a new physical therapist in this new town — as expected — all of which were on my to-do list for next week. In other words, planned — as soon as new insurance kicked in after the new year’s holiday.

What wasn’t planned was how my body would react to all the weeks of ignoring pain and limitations, and the resulting (likely) pinched nerve that is now causing these unsettling and enervating problems.

Is there a message or lesson to be taken from any of this? Humor to be found? Perspective to be gained? What about the proverbial wisdom that we shouldn’t sweat the small stuff? Aren’t there excellent reasons that we do — because small stuff adds up and can crush the life out of us?

What about the reminder of societal and political realities — the extent to which the US healthcare system is a mishmash from state to state, city to city, and how ineffective, damaging even, that is? Why is one ER so crowded that people can’t be seen and another, just two miles away, empty? Why is it that Urgent Care could only see me if I had a certain kind of insurance and not another, though that isn’t why they said to go to the ER?

Why must quality healthcare — or healthcare, period — be a matter of one’s bank account when other industrialized countries have dealt with this challenge?

What about how fortunate it is that I could pull out a credit card when I had to pay $160 (who knows what I will be billed later) — even with insurance?

What about how important community is, or having someone you can call in an emergency, at the very least? What about the reminder of the importance of self-care?

And then there is gratitude. Gratitude that what could have been something very serious was not. Gratitude that the staff at the second hospital was extraordinarily fast, friendly, and uber-professional.

One very explicit lesson (and piece of advice): If you are “of a certain age” and you are relocating, create a support network as quickly as you can, and do be sure you know where the nearest hospitals are.

As for the mantra that appeared to calm me, it was more. It was a reminder that I need to embrace each day more generously, more actively, more creatively — to the extent that I can — and not just in a frightening situation but in my everyday life.

Greet everything. Even on the days when you are feeling alone, or in pain, or discouraged, or just out of sorts.

Forgive me for running on — I’m very tired after yesterday and my body is telling me to get horizontal and stay that way. And rather than (properly) edit this morning musing, I need to listen to my body.

 

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