White Boy/White Dog Move To Skid Row

Certified Beach Dude Moves To Downtown Los Angeles

After my last post about how I abruptly left the Good Samaritan Hospital, I wanted to convey to you how positive my experience actually was, and how I lost my fear of emergency rooms and hospitals due to the people that provided the immediate care to me at that facility.

In all of my decades on this earth, I have never had to go to an emergency room, nor spent a night in a hospital let alone have surgury (psych ward visit does not count). I have not visited an MD since college days. I have broken bones (hands, fingers, feet, collarbones)- my x-rays show white zig-zag lines of calcium deposits along where previous breaks were. Once I put my head half-way through a windshield in a car crash, and for months picked glass out of my scalp, but I did not see a doctor. Call me hard headed… but I was afraid. For some unknown bad luck, all of my doctors as a youth were raging alcoholics and drank at work (MD, dentist, orthodontist, opthalmologist) and they did not set the tone for how I wanted to be treated as a patient.

So when my abdominal pain started Sunday night, I was thinking indigestion or food poisening- I made myself vomit a few times to see if I could get rid of the “trouble”. But as pain kept getting worse Monday morning, I was thinking “appendicidis” as the pain was so strong and cramping, but it was not focused in right lower quadrant as it should (yes, I love “self-diagnosing” and have studied biochemistry and physiology quite a bit). I was pacing about my loft- laying down, getting up, sitting at computer, sitting on toilet. lying on bathroom floor, repeat… for about an hour when it became clear I could not handle the pain any more. I had things to deal with (dog, lease, job interviews, etc) but they could wait at least a few hours.

At this point, I had to call an ambulance, and I was thinking they would relieve my pain as when I had my 5150 incident they had me on an IV and EKG before putting me in ambulance. I guess the rules are different downtown, as the paramedics said they could do nothing w/o doctors orders, and basically all they did was give me a ride to hospital while I alternatively reclined and stood up in back of ambulance to try to take my mind off of pain. I let them select the hospital, as I was in no mood to try to lookup what Officer Central Division had recommended previously, and they took me to Good Samaritan. The paramedics were of enormous assistance in getting me to the the correct place in hospital ER queue, and that was worth their fee, as they helped expedite me through a process that I would have gone crazy dealing with myself, in the pain that I was. (At this point I must mention that the reports of people abusing the emergency system seem true- too many people laughing, carrying on with others while waiting, as I want to kick a hole in the wall in pain- some guy went up elevator with me to “real” ER and I think he had a splinter in his finger or something).

So, 1 1/2 hours after deciding I was in too much pain to do anything, I am still sitting in a chair in ER telling a lady my address, etc while someone is taking my blood pressure and temperature (at one point my bp was 188/150 - I always am 120/80 and this freaked me out, and nurses too). Finally I get to “real” ER area where I am put behind curtains that don’t close with curious eyes peering in and told to strip and put on a robe- I could care less if I ran naked through the lobby at that point, and on went the robe, with my “ghetto booty” hanging out the back as it did not fit at all. All the time I am begging for pain medicine, and water, but I was told that was not allowed- I understand, but damn, I was sweating bullets (the paramedic said “you seem to be sweating…” and I almost blew up after being in that hot-ass ambulance with no air conditioning or shock absorbers while I feel like my gut is bouncing out of the floor-boards, in 90+ degree weather).

Then the doctor comes in behind the curtains- Dr. “Garbon” (I don’t know how it was spelled, but it sounded like that). Honestly, he was better looking than George Clooney- salt-and-pepper, muscular physique, and piercing eyes that could read me like a book. I was really hoping for a buxom Asian lady that would give me a sponge bath and calm me, but this guy was the real deal, straight-shooter type that spoke little, but what he said rang true. He ordered X-Rays, CAT scan, and ultrasound STAT! I’m still begging for pain meds, and he spoke to the nurse, Brian, who got me on an IV and added some Dilaudid that helped relieve not so much the pain as my anxiety. I have never taken opiates other than a Vicodin, and this seemed to work pretty well at first. Brian was a very caring person- putting up with all my stupid questions and my stupid answers as he quizzed me about what drugs and supplements I take (the list is fairly long and complex, and it was clear that neither he nor Dr. Garbon liked what they heard, but they were non-judgemental- except for the occasional comment like “damn anti-aging doctors prescribing Testosterone and HGH…”- neither of which I take but they just assumed as I am in pretty decent shape for my age).

Good Samaritan did an amazing job of orchestrating all the tests- I could not believe how efficient and computerized they were. In an hours time, I had chest/abdominal x-rays, an aeortic ultrasound, and a full-torso CAT scan. People moved me from department-to-department with efficiency only seen on a Japanese car assembly line. Each time I returned to my “home” in the ER room, Dr. Garbon and Brian would stop by to explain what was going on, and to help coordinate the next move. And they did this, all the while tending to many other patients.

So after all the test were complete, and the results delivered to the doctor (about 2 hours since I was admitted to ER), Dr. Garbon comes in, pulls up a stool and sits down with a serious look (this could have been straight from a soap opera episode, but since I was in my opiate-fueled haze it didn’t scare me). He started out with the serious talk- I have a spleen fungus infection- did I ever live in Ohio River Valley region? (I grew up in Indiana- this question was definitely a joke, right?). Oh shit I think- but then he continues- my kidneys are damaged and close to requiring dialysis, ok, 2 strikes against me. But the list goes on- more important, I have huge imbalance of Calcium, enough to screw up the electrical signals to my heart (and that statement caused my heart to skip a beat). BUT, what is REALLY wrong, is I have an obstruction in my small intestine, that could be a TUMOR, and would most likely require surgury!

DAMN! I think I’ve had that feeling once before when I was on an airplane coming home from Hawaii and an engine blew up; after the loud explosion, the plane was completely silent and all that I could think was “this is it…” as my mind went blank and the body went numb. No pulling-punches from Dr. Garbon- but the way he explained it, I felt confident that he could make my body whole again. Just like earlier, when I heard about all the tests he ordered, I asked “do you think we could skip the CAT scan, to save money, if the ultrasound shows the problem?” and he looked at me like “you are an idiot” and promptly said “YES I THINK YOU NEED THE CAT SCAN!!!” and then chatized me for the amount of $$$ I spent on supplements vs. good health insurance- touche, I deserved that.

So the good Dr. says he wants me admitted to hospital, and that he would have the surgeon stop by to talk with me. Questions are swirling through my mind- “how big is incision?”, “how long is recovery?”, “what are options?”… Dr. O’Donnall appears, and he is a serious looking gentleman with an easy smile but a no-bullshit look to him- like Clint Eastwood in ‘The Enforcer”. He says he wants me to immediately have a tube put down my nose, into my stomach, to “decompress” my stomach and remove excess air and fluids. And he wants a catheter inserted- CATHETER??? YIKES! I’ve been near someone who had that and it is not something a concious human being, especially male, wants to think about. I say I can handle the nose-thing, but can we skip the catheter until surgury? He laughs, and says “Oh, you will not like the tube down your throat a bit- it sucks!”, but then he acquieces and says we can skip the catheter as long as I can pee on my own, which I said was an affirmative as I almost made a puddle on the ground right there.

At this point I ask if I can just leave and take an IV and some Dilaudid with me and wait it out at home, and it is explained that if I leave, I sign a paper saying I refused treatment and I would be given NO medication, no pain pills, nothing. I argue that this is against a physician’s hippocratic oath, to not help someone who is suffering, but that falls on ears that are afraid of lawsuits.

So after several minutes of thought, I tell them to admit me and lets get started making me feel well again. All this was as great of an experience as it could have been. I am not afraid of doctors (or nurses) any more, and I have that much more respect for the people that work in an ER environment.

The problems I had at Good Samaritan began when I had to start dealing with the doctor in charge of all the patients in the hospital… he still is on my shit-list.