The corridors were empty, silent, dark. It was one in the morning. We were heading to the elevators. But they were so far away, and we couldn't get there. Down in the ER, I had told a nurse that the pain had gotten much worse. The morphine from a couple hours ago must have worn off. My husband had just left when the pain got so bad that I needed to tell someone. The nurse said, "Can you wait until you get upstairs for more medicine?" I said, "Okay." I didn't want to trouble anyone. (Yes, I would do this differently, knowing what I know now.)
She told me, "We want to get you into a room. They say they'll likely do surgery later tonight or tomorrow to remove the appendix. But the elevators down here aren't working. So we can take you outside and in an ambulance to the other side of the hospital, or we can put you in a wheelchair and take you around the hospital to the other side." I was so cold. I had a fever. I didn't want to have to get ready to go outside. I had told them that the pain was like the pain of labor. I'd had four kids, one without the epidural. That's what I told them -- like labor without drugs. They shook their heads okay. Note to self: don't use that analogy again. While it meant everything to me, the most severe pain of my life, it meant nothing to them.
I thought of Grey's Anatomy. Wasn't there an episode (I've watched many seasons) where someone gets kidnapped in the bowels of the hospital? This was me, away from everyone except one man an this wheelchair, in search of an elevator we might never find. Who knew we were here? And I might die on the way anyway. He had no medicine with him; his job was simply to get me upstairs.
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I crouched out of the wheelchair and into the bed. Safe. Relieved. And yet in so much pain. The nurse tried to hook me up to things (which things, I don't know), but it was hard. And I complained and complained every time she touched me or even when she didn't touch me. I kept repeating, It hurts so much it hurts so much it hurts so much. She called in reinforcements. They tried and tried. But the needles wouldn't go in, the blood pressure was too low, they couldn't give the pain medication. I remember it all as a haze, of being in the middle of a few people who were trying to get me comfortable but couldn't, and I cried and cried and cried and complained -- oh, I felt bad about being so difficult, but I couldn't stop whining and crying and saying, That hurts!
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A doctor walked in, fresh and morning-looking. I had slept. They must have gotten the medicine in somehow. He reviewed my case with me, told me he was debating whether to give me antibiotics or to go in and remove the appendix just in case it was a problem. I smiled and deferred. Did I mention the horrific twenty hours preceding this morning? No. I didn't mention being hunched over at school between parent conferences, wishing to pass out so that I would get whisked away and taken care of and the stomach pain would go away and I wouldn't have to figure out what to do. I didn't mention that I nearly crawled my way to my car; that I have a high tolerance for pain; that I thought that I was going to die the night before; that I'd never been in such bad shape in my entire life. I'm a forty-seven year old healthy woman with four kids. I teach high school, and I do yoga and walk every day. I'm lucky and healthy and have a full life. I'm never sick until I'm really sick. This is the worst sick I'd been. Debilitating.
I didn't say this. He said, "But, you know, you look great. I think I'll just give you the antibiotics, and that should clear things up."
He thought some more. "On the other hand, maybe we should check it out just in case. Just to be sure. Yeah, we can go in laprascopically to check things out and take out the appendix if it's a problem. It's an easy surgery. You'll be out of here this afternoon."
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