Monday, September 21, 2009

being a patient

Somewhere in there I realized I had a head injury with loss of consciousness. I told my friend I had a broken zygomatic arch. That is the bone under and along the side of your eye. It is sort of the bony part around your eye. My friend said I didn't and I said I did, so he bet me. The Er doc came in and I told him I needed a CT (cat scan) of the head. Mostly I was terrified that I had a fractured skull and a bleed in my head, called a subdural hematoma. The ER doc said he was already going to get one, he also said I would get one of my face and neck. I remember being cold and shivering a lot in the ER. I started to come to more as I got wheeled over to the CT scanner down the hall. I was worried about leaving my wife who was in the bay next to me, and I wanted her to come with me. She reassured me she was OK and in fact was also going to X-ray to get her finger x-rayed.
When I got over to CT I started to come to a little more. I think I had an IV in by then. The CT went really quick. I knew there was nothing wrong with my neck as I sure could feel everything below that and move everything. But they had stuck a cervical brace on me to protect me from moving my neck anyway.
When I got back the ER doc said I had a tripod fracture of my orbit, basically the bone above my eye, alongside my eye and under my eye were broken. I asked about the head, what about cranium fractures, what about a brain bleed. That is the stuff that kills people when it is missed. The ER doc said no things looked OK, but was waiting for the radiologist to give a report.
The radiologists are the docs that you never meet and you get huge bills that insurance companies reimburse at rates of 20-30 times of what I make in the same time spent. You never recognize their names when they appear on the bill. I should have been a radiologist.
The ER doc would not take off the cervical brace while waiting for the radiology report.
I think the nurse who was pretty nice, (apparently I kept apologizing to everyone, for being so stupid and I was ashamed for crashing a motor scooter), kept hitting me with morphine through my IV.
I remember her standing over me and talking with my friend and telling him she was pretty worried about the laceration on my forehead.
Finally the ER doc came back and said we could take of the neck collar. I said, I told you there was nothing wrong with my neck. He advised they were calling in the plastic surgeon.
I asked who it was and if he was going to show up.
I then tried to listen to what the ER doc was saying to my wife in the next bay. She had lost her finger nail and had a fracture on the tip of her finger. I asked the ER doc if there was anything else and if she was OK. I think he said that she was.

1 comment:

David Schantz said...

"The radiologists are the docs that you never meet and you get huge bills that insurance companies reimburse at rates of 20-30 times of what I make in the same time spent. You never recognize their names when they appear on the bill." I remember one of the times Sue was in the hospital for heart problems. Someone came to the door of her room one day. When she saw him she told him there was no reason for her to see him. He said he wanted to see how she was doing. He left when she said I told you there is no reason for you to see me. Then she told me that he was a doctor, part of the hospital, and if he came into the room and ask about how she was doing he could bill us. What a racket!

God Bless America, God Save The Republic.

Talking about the book with the Lake Superior wind....... a calm day