a patient patient

an emergency room is a strange community.  it is a place where people from all walks of life congregate, the young and the old, parents and children alike.  it does not discriminate across race or gender, only categorizes those who are sick and others who are sicker, grading the pain, as if you could measure a hip replacement that has popped out of its socket, a ruptured appendix, or broken bones.  and then there is me -- walking in on my own 2 legs, feeling remarkably healthy in comparison.

the wait through registration and triage and whatever step that is between triage and the next available room is not only frustrating and intensely boring, but a test of wills -- the will to be helped, to be told you're okay flush up against the will to run home immediately, to a dark room that doesn't smell antiseptic or synthetic, to a chair you can sink into rather than a stiff, industrial one bolted to the one next to it.

and then there is observation.  it's significantly quieter than the waiting room, the hustle and bustle now coming from the wheels of carts holding laptops and supplies, sneakers on the floors, insurance registrars and nurses and lab technicians and doctors rather than the cries and groans from potential patients on all sides.  here, you have your own bed (aka 'litter') surrounded by 3 walls and a curtain, and it almost, nearly feels like sitting in front of your TV set in the family room, except you're not, and the voices you hear are real.

somehow between the initial exam and various bouts of poking and prodding, it has now been almost 7 hours from the time you first stepped in line and the results you are awaiting, your stomach an empty hole (save for the bag of potato chips you shared with your husband after realizing it's either vending machine or gnawing hunger), the backless gown feeling big enough to drown in.  you begin to wonder which part of you will win this battle, still ready to bolt, watching your husband's tired eyes in the chair beside you, but grounded to this bed and room, sticking around to hear the news.  and you are wiped out too, wondering how or why we as people constantly take our bodies for granted, pushing through the minor aches and pains, lack of sleep, awful diets, and that big, loaded word -- STRESS -- until something alarming happens and we suddenly become fragile.  fragile and weary and scared, willing to wait, willing to go the distance just to hear 5 magical words: "you're going to be okay."

updated: ~1:30 a.m.