The ER Experience

Needless to say the ER is an experience all it's own. Every one who works at a hospital seems to wear scrubs, but their colors signify different things. I noticed pink was for Maternity, green was for Surgeons, purple were for Physical Therapists just to name a few. So when you first check in and are not familiar with the color scheme, you wind up telling your whole history to the triage nurse who is not the triage nurse but a candy-striper.

So I pulled up to the ER doors and run inside to get a wheelchair. I was just there a few weeks earlier when we thought Alex broke his ankle playing catch with the football on Easter Sunday. So I knew exactly where they stored them. I somehow manage to get Amy out of the truck and into the wheelchair without too much drama, but she did spill her water down the front of my pants as if I couldn't hold it. Great! She was really mad because I wouldn't stop on the way to the ER to pick her up some strawberry milk. Damn that strawberry milk!

I never knew you could be seen so fast by a doctor in the ER. We had her checked into triage by the time I parked the truck and walked back to the ER. They immediately wheeled her back and was seen by the doctor right away. I was amazed! Hell, women giving birth to twins in the parking lot won't see a doctor that quick! But I digress. The doctor asks her what brought her to the ER and of course she answers, My Sister did. So I go into the full story about the spray paint, migraine, the visit Monday night and her actions that day. I explained how she didn't care that her front door was standing wide open or anything. They ordered a CAT Scan and she's back within a few minutes. The doctor comes back and said she can't tell exactly what is going on from the CAT Scan alone, so she'll need to do an MRI. She said it looks like either a stroke in a very odd place in the brain or a brain tumor. Amy is only 38, this can't be happening. They both were earth-shattering to me, so I wasn't sure which one was better to hope for. I felt like I was in a movie when they zoom in on the central character while panning out at the same time. It just couldn't be real. We lost our Mama 3 years earlier to cancer. Both of our fathers had passed away as well. (We are half-sisters, but grew up together and often forget we are not full-blooded sisters. We have the most wonderful man for a Step-father, Paul, who has been there with us since I was 3 and Amy was 6. I have often wished I was his blood daughter, but I know he couldn't love me any more than he already does. I am his daughter.)

When they came to take her for the MRI, and I asked the doctor to please knock her out for it. She had a migraine and I knew the pounding sound would just be torturous. After the MRI, she was resting and I was able to make a few phone calls. I called Paul and Olivia to tell them of the news we were waiting on, my husband Alex, and our only other family member in town, my cousin Kris. Plus her cellphone had been ringing off the hook all morning from her customers who were concerned. When Amy woke up, she thought she would be able to go home or at the least go outside and smoke a cigarette. Ha! I told her sorry, she would be in the hospital at least over the weekend and she has smoked her last cigarette, ever. The results came back , she had 2 full blown strokes, not a mini-stroke but full strokes. They started an IV with Coumadin and other meds and then we were just waiting for a room to open up for her to be admitted.

Paul, Olivia and Kris all showed up about 6 pm right as her room was ready. By that time she had lost a lot of strength on her left side and couldn't walk or lift her left arm. So Kris said he would stay the night with her and I was finally able to go home. By this time, my boobs had become engorged because I hadn't nursed the twins all day and forgot my pump at home. It was all just surreal. How could this be happening?

Amy, Amy, Amy. What to do, what to do?

So back in April my sister, Amy, called me and told me she was really sick and couldn't go out to dinner with us all. We had reservations at Kabutos for her daughter's 16th birthday. She was spray painting the Rock outside Olivia's high-school and thought she had spray paint poisoning. She called me and said she was throwing up and had the worst headache in her life. The wind kept whipping the paint back into her face. My thoughts were why in the hell did you paint into the wind and not paint the other side of the Rock? But I knew she didn't want to hear it just then. So I got online to research huffing and tried to figure out if she should go to the ER. She doesn't have insurance and can't afford it. She cleans houses for a living and doesn't even make enough to get by, but you do what you've got to do, you know? Well, everything came back about respiratory symptoms and nothing about a migraine or vomiting. So I told her to lay down, rest and take some Tylenol.

During the following week, I called her everyday to check on her. She tried to work a couple of days but just couldn't make it and had to take off. The whole time, she and I laughed that only she could get spray paint poisoning outdoors. It's typical for her. (Remind me one day to tell you about the helicopter story. It's hilarious!) I had been thinking all week something was seriously wrong, so I called Poison Control for their advice. They thought she was a teenager who had been huffing. They said there is no way she had spray paint poisoning from paint outdoors. It would have to be in a bag and breathed in intentionally. So we thought it was just a standard run of the mill migraine. But after a solid week of having a migraine without relief, she decided she should probably go to the ER. Olivia went with her since it was about 10pm. The Doctor said it had nothing to do with spray painting but it was definitely a migraine. She sent her home with Fenergan and Ibuprofen 800mg. That was a Monday night. They didn't get home until almost 3 am in the morning, so Olivia didn't go to school on Tuesday. Wednesday, I called to check on her and she had not gotten out of bed all day and didn't take Olivia to school! I'm was getting pretty ticked off by this point and thought she was just milking the situation. I could understand why she was depressed but Olivia HAD to go to school. Her only chance at paying for college is with a scholarship. I made arrangements with Paul to get Olivia to school on Thursday, just in case Amy didn't get out of bed again. Which surprise, she didn't! So Paul took Olivia to school and told her to ride the bus to his house after school and he would take her home. I planned on meeting Paul and Olivia at Amy's house to have a serious family talk with her after school. At this point it had been almost 2 weeks since she had worked and we were really worried about how she would be able to pay the rent. (Oh, Paul is our Step-Dad, Mama passed away 3 years ago) Plus bad enough as that was, we were not going to let her neglect Olivia. That is just out of character, her life revolves around Olivia. Oh Amy, what to do, what to do?