Contributed by Nasa.

Ok, last part.  This went longer then I thought it would.  When we last left off I had already been in the hospital for about 1 and half days and still hadn't been given a room even though I was on a course to be admitted.  I was placed in a dark room with about a dozen other beds full with people in what felt like the hospital basement.  It was referred to as a "holding area".  The previous night, I was told that I had Colitis.  An infection of my colon and some of my intestine caused by food poisoning of some sort. 

I awoke the next day starting to gain more strength, I felt like shit, but at least I wasn't dehydrated anymore.  I was quickly visited by a surgical team.  It was made up of an older doctor with a team of interns trailing him.  One of the two guys that diagnosed me last night was with him, reading back his notes.  They asked some questions, the head guy seemed to agree with last nights diagnosis.  I didn't really get to ask many questions, it was kind of fucked up.  He said he'd "check back later with more info" after there was some sort of descrpetency in the notes.  I noticed his badge said "Head of Surgery" on it.

I started freaking out after they left.  Why the fuck is the "Head of Surgery" visiting me?  Are they going to cut me open now?  It just didn't add up.  This shit kept me awake and nervous for about an hour.  Eventually someone settled me down and explained that the surgeons just keep abreast of situations like mine, just in case something happens where they need to get involved.  It'd be nice if they told the patient that. 

I started noticing that most of the people in my "ward" were coughing up a storm.  A few of them were elderly and mentioned having Pneumonia.  Great.  They put me, a dehydrated food poisoning victim in a room full of sickies all night.  Just what I need.

At this point I hear a guy starting to bug out.  He's on some "I don't want any of that, I just want to get the hell out of here now!  I want a doctor here so I can get signed out".  The doctor on the floor goes over to him and tries to explain the situation.  He ends up just pissing off the doctor.  I can hear the doctor talking about the dude when he got far enough away that dude couldn't hear him but I still could.  Pretty funny, he was on some "whatever, fuck this dude then" shit.  Pretty ill to hear a doctor on that vibe.  The guy probably should have just shut the fuck up and dealt with the situation.  It got me thinking to the night before when I was really ready to march out if i didn't get my Catscan.  That would have been a really stupid decision.  After being there that long I started to see all the cracks in the Health Care System.  The hospital was understaffed and under funded.  The reasons behind why that is don't have to be visited here, but it was clear that the system we have isn't working. 

Finally, I get a room at about Noon or so.  Put me in a quarantine room.  When the door opened it made a loud high pitched buzz so that people knew to "close the fucking door".  They also had a sink so people could wash their hands on the way in and out just outside my door.  They hadn't made the desicsion yet as to whether I was contagious (I wasn't).  That was certainly interesting.  The room looked like something out of the 1960's.  It did have a private bathroom and shower.  That shit helped a lot.

From that point on my stay was pretty normal.  It was either another day or two in that room, the doctor eventually freed me to leave.  I was on a liquid diet for the entire hospital stay except for a small turkey sandwich that I had about an hour before my dismissal.  That was the tastiest sandwich ever made.

I lost mad weight.  I was super weak for days after I was released.  Eventually I re-gained my strength, but to this moment I am extremely suspect of all food that I eat from outside now.  I work in mid-town Manhattan later at night and the food just isn't fresh and the people handling the food are the "B Team" at best.  That adds up to food poisoning.  These days all my food is from the Fresh Direct machine in my building, a slice of pizza downstairs or maybe a sandwich from Subway.

That's my first lesson in all this, watch what your eating.  It's not about snacks and all that, it's actually about the quality of your food.  After you see how delicate your organs can be, you start to really think about what your putting in your body.  Fast food is OUT.  I haven't had any fast food since.  Between dropping fast food and my quitting soda cold turkey I figure that's enough to make up for the chocolate and beer intake I have going on.

One thing that struck me was when my wife came in the room and said "Damn, you think they could put a coat of paint up in here".  At that moment I realized why they never do that shit.  They don't want you to be overly comfortable.  They need you to get the hell out so they can get the next person in, they also seemingly have no time to shit like that.  The hospital was a buzz everywhere I was.  Everyone that was good at their jobs was busy all the time.

Sitting there as long as I did, I had some pretty deep thoughts about the Health Care Debate, which was raging at the time I checked in.  Unfortunately, this took a lot longer to write then I thought.  So much more happened, I could write a book based on that 3 and half- 4 day stay.  I practically did.

Hopefully, this will help anybody that's a first time hospital patient.  At 31, this was my first time.  I wasn't surprised by that much since I've visited so many in hospitals, but a lot did take me off guard.  My advice is, be patient but also get your needs across to people.  It's a tough balance, but you'll get it eventually if you're there long enough.  It's not a hotel, don't expect too much, but don't allow anyone to be incompetent around you either.

peace and good health!

Contributed by Nasa.

As we left it in Part 2, I had been admitted to the hospital in the wee hours of the morning and spent my night in a hallway on a gurnee waiting to get a room while they ran some tests on me. 

So, there I sat for hours.  People walking by seemingly in that stop motion fast forward style in movies and shit.  The clock ticked and ticked.  I was seen and poked by many doctors, nurses, PAs, etc.  The whole time I had my wife by my side thankfully.  She sat in a chair near my gurnee.  A lot of the people kept feeling around near my Appendix.  I thought this was odd.  I felt deep down that I didn't have an Appendix problem, but what did I know, I thought I had swine flu when I checked in right?

I was told that I'd need an Catscan.  For those that don't know, that's when they lay on a table and send you into a tube that scans you.  You have do shit like, hold your breath when your in there, and the staff high tails it out of the room when they start it because of the radiation.  It's some Total Recall shit, but I had a while to wait for that.

Basically, that Catscan was what would help them make their final decision on my prognosis and what was truly wrong with me.  Everything else was just theory at that point.  I should point out that in the hallway with me a few gurneys down (remember, every step of this ER is lined with gurneys, maybe 60-100 in total) is a mentally ill man.  He's yelling about "Getting his lawyer" and "No way you can get away this, call my lawyer".  At first I didn't realize he was mentally ill, I couldn't see him from my bed, but apparently he was on some 50 year old head banger shit whiling out.  It seemed later he was only calmed down when someone brought him a DVD from home where he watched live concerts from.  Having experience in my family with mental illness and admitting several people, I was shocked to learn that nowadays if your mentally ill and need to be admitted, you now wait in a public hallway on a gurney with all the physically sick people.  That sounds like a smart practice right?

There's a long wait for Catscans.  It's hours.  They took my blood pressure, tempature and pulse about every 90 minutes all morning.  It always came out pretty good for me.  That shit wasn't really my issue.  Then this nurse or whatever she was took my blood pressure and it was mad low.  Like unrealistically low.  I could tell that this was because she was applying that wrap incorrectly.  She put it on my further arm across my body, all the other nurses put it on my closer arm to the edge of the bed.  The shit was like 75/37 or some wild shit.  I'm looking at it like, wouldn't I be lucid right now.  I felt know different then I did for all the 110/80 readings I had been getting.  They believed it anyway, started getting nervous and shit.  Finally, someone else came over and took it again, it was normal.  They were like "great, your back to normal now, good to see".  ????????  Fucking amazing.  Of course, that "normal" reading was on my correct arm.

What I learned later is that after waiting for about 8 hours for this Catscan, that because my blood pressure was "so low" they skipped over me when they were ready to take me in for it.  You can't get an Catscan when your blood pressure is that low.  A doctor came over and got really pissed at my nurse because apparently she didn't submit my subscription form correctly either.  Now I'm getting pissed.  It's now like 6pm.  I'm thinking I'm going to have to spend another night in the hallway.  Apparently this whole time, I couldn't get a room until they gave me a Catscan and knew what I had.  I'm at the point now where I'm saying shit like "If they can't give me a Catscan tonight, I'm fucking leaving, fuck this".

Finally, the Catscan transport team shows up again for me.  Me and my wife roll with them to the catscan, myself literally on the gurney.  The team is made up of a man and a woman.  Your man is thugged out.  He had a gruff voice like Premier or some shit and he's talking about how his boss busted him on his cell phone "checking the time" the whole time.  He was getting really pissed off the more he talked about it.  He actually seemed to walk off at one point while we waited to cool off.  He was on some "I'm gonna fuck this dude up if he......blah, blah, blah".  I'm on some shit in the gurney, like damn dude, chill out, but I didn't say anything since I'm barely functional at this point.  Meanwhile we wait in a basement in yet another hallway for this Catscan.  About 15-20 minutes pass down there.  Then, dude comes out, says, this Doctor is shutting down this machine for cleaning, we have to use the other one.  Great. 

So, I get rolled down the hallway and guess what?  I'm now behind 3 other people in gurneys waiting on this line.  Now, I'm really fucking pissed.  How much longer can this go on?  I'm finally next, ready to get this done.  It's important to remember, I'm not just being impatient for the sake of being impatient.  I've been in a hallway on a gurney all day, really more then a day, and the whole time it's this Catscan that will tell me what's wrong, which I still didn't know.  The anticipation of finding out combined with unreasonable conditions can really make you lose it.  So, I'm next, whatever.  Then they roll in an "emergency catscan".  So I have to wait again.  This poor guy was in a motorcycle or a car accident.  He was literally a twisted mess.  That erased most of my impatience.  In a way, it made me feel stupid seeing him there in such dyer need.  But, it wasn't his fault. 

It was the nurses that can't take blood pressure, and the fact that they had me on a wild goose chase for a Catscan machine for the last 40 minutes that pissed me off.  The poor guy had lots of broken bones and ribs.  It's not like he had open wounds or anything, but he was just curled up in pain.  He likely had to stretch out to get on the Catscan which probably caused him mad pain and explained why his took so long.

I guess I forgot to mention, the whole time when you wait for a Catscan you have to drink this fairly disgusting Orange flavored drink.  You have to drink like a fucking gallon of it too.  It's not as bad as that bullshit you have to drink for a colonosopy though (you don't want to drink that shit).  Still bad though.  So they had me gulp down another cup of that bullshit and gave me the Catscan. 

I go back up to my gurney placement in the hallway.  It was shitty.  I'm about to spend the second night in a row in a damn hallway.  A hallway with mad activity happening 24/7 mind you.  How does anyone get better like this? By this time my folks and my in laws had been around and come to see me, that always helps.  I'm trying to chill and settle in somehow, then they say "Your moving".  Ok, they put me in one of those private rooms, but still in the ER that I mentioned in a previous Part.  This room is huge to a person that's been in a hallway for about 35 hours.  It's also got a free TV and phone in it.  Word. 

My folks and wife now feel ok leaving me, we say our goodbyes and I settle in to watch an NBA game.  Seeing the Blazers and Bulls or whatever random game was on TV never felt so good.  A male nurse now comes in about an hour later.  He takes some blood, mentions being moved again to me. 

I find out that after the doctor comes to talk to me, I'm getting moved to another area, that's NOT the ER, but also not my own room.  It's like a holding area.  I had been told about this area, because my wife's Grandmother had been in there about a month earlier.  Ugh. 

This whole time, hopefully, I've mentioned this, I haven't been allowed to eat anything.  That's obvious, but I've also not been allowed to drink anything.  Even Water.  Now, hyrdration wise, I've got the IV, so I'm cool.  But my mouth was mad dry.  Male nurse dude gives me some "Ice Chips" which are the only thing I'm allowed.  Of course, Ice Chips become water, but I'm not questioning shit.  Those Ice Chips were like the best shit in the world at that moment when I got em.  They should market these joints, they were kind of just ice shavings, but whatever.  The whole time I'm in there trying to chill there's a dude right outside my window trying to make himself vomit.  He's just laid out on the floor chilling, surrounded by family, shoving several fingers down his throat.  I should reiterate, it's not the staff doing this tyring to get some poison out or something, he's just doing it.  All you heard was vomit sounds, no vomit.  I couldn't figure it out.  My wife, before she left had said that sometimes drunks and junkies that are nauseous try to get themselves to vomit so they stop feeling that way.  She works as a Medical Assistant and sees crackheads at her job sometimes.  Hear I am like "Brandon Roye shoots another three and the Blazers are.bluaahahahahahahaha" up by 7 now".  Kind of disturbing.  Footnote: his gurney is like 2 away from the mental patient from earlier.

The doctor finally comes in.  I notice right away that his jacket indicates he's a "Surgical Doctor".  That can't be good.  He's got an intern with him that's writing shit down for him as he speaks.  He tells me that I have "Colitis".  It's an infection of my Colon, my intestine leading to my Colon is also infected somewhat.  It was caused by food poisoning.  Something I ate was rotten, or someone who prepped my food didn't wash (even more disgusting).  Since he was a surgical doctor I asked if I need surgery, he said "No, at this point it doesn't seem that way" or something like that.  Out of nervousness I asked if it had anything at all to do with Colon Cancer or anything like that.  He said a clearer "No".  I was then left to my thoughts.

It was now about 10pm, I was pushed back through the hallway with all the sick people, into a darker hallway.  I went down a large slope and into a room that felt like I wouldn't ever escape from.  There were about 12 beds in here.  The lights were out and it was so dark, that you couldn't see a hand in front of your face at first.  It looked like a hospital ward from a horror movie.  It was the remnants of an older part of the ER.  Apparently, they are going to re-do this part at some point too.  Currently, it's a mess.  I still had free TV and phone down there, watched some TV and eventually crashed.  I must say the nurses in this dark creepy wing were way better and more professional.  They really helped out and put the nurses I'd dealt with before to shame.

This is where I slept.  In a dark, abandoned room with 12 other varied sick people.  Still not officially admitted.

When will I finally get a room, what else went down, and when did I get out?  All that's in Part 4 (Don't worry, that'll be the last part).

Contributed by Nasa.

As I said in Part 1, the reason I'm writing these blogs is mainly because of the fact that I'm just getting into my 30's and I know a lot of people my age, but even younger, may have their first hospital stays soon (hopefully not) and I wanted to share what that was like.  I also wanted to share how stretched our Health Care System is since the Reform debate continues.

At the end of Part 1, I had just gotten to the Emergency Room.  I had passed out twice, semi-vomited, was running a 2 day or so fever and my stomach was in knots.  I was in pretty bad shape.  My wife rode threw red lights to get me there faster, I was starting to feel nauseous again, and the last two times I felt that way I blacked out.  We were of course expecting a huge volume of people in the waiting room, but to our surprise there really weren't any patients in the waiting area.  We also didn't see any nurses.  I got set down on a chair, while my wife talked to the Security Guard, he then went off to fetch the triage nurse.  Triage is traditionally a station where you are seen as soon as you walk in, then they can access how fucked up you really are and place you in line.  Where was this person?  As I sat there, I knew I was in need of an IV with fluids, I needed it badly.  Despite the fact that there was no one else in front of me, it took a full 20 minutes until the triage nurse came back to the station that she was supposed to be in.  20 minutes waiting to pass out.  Bull shit.

I finally was called in, she directed me to the back after asking me some questions, she basically walked rudely about 10-20 steps ahead of me while I confusedly followed her.  I finally was seated on an examination table in a room in the ER area.  I basically fell asleep in there.  Eventually a PA (Physician's Assistant) came in, she listened as I explained what was wrong and she immediately hooked me up to an IV with fluids.  "Finally", I thought, "a professional that can help me".  A few minutes later one of the Doctors that was on duty came in.  They both said I looked terrible and was pale.  Those that know me, know that I typically am pale.  I haven't been to a beach in a bathing suit since I was about 6 years old.  Me and Sun don't see eye to eye much.  In any case, I must have looked like a crack head up in there.  I should say I was rocking my Pink Floyd PJ bottoms at the time, because the situation was so dire, we had to leave right away from home.  Nice. 

The doctor started to feel my abdomen, when I told him I thought maybe I had the flu, he quickly dismissed that theory.  He said it was more likely that I had some sort of "intestinal infection" and that I'd probably have to be admitted. 

Wow, I totally didn't expect that at all.  I thought I had the flu, maybe even the Swine Flu, I figured they'd give me fluids a prescription and kick me out.  Some diagnosis I came up with.  I've been to the hospital for visits many times, between my wife, my mom and my dad I've seen many people in the hospital for extended stays.  Some times my visits for my wife would be so long, it felt like I was in the hospital too.  BUT, I had never personally gone through it and been that person in the bed.

At that point, they needed to do tests, no final diagnosis was reached that soon.  I fell back asleep on the exam seat until I was woken up by a loud nurse that announced they needed the room and needed to get me into a gurney anyway, an "exam table was no place to leave me".  I was put into a gurney and wheeled off from the room within the ER.  I was then placed in the hallway of the ER.  This hospital had just redone their whole ER section, it was sprawling.  I was situated in the hallway right by the main nurses station, which had a loud television right near me that had readings of patients of some sort on it and beeped like a fucked up version of Super Mario Brothers.  It was like you'd fall asleep and hear a loud ass analog synth key held down for like 5 seconds.  As I got my bearings I realized there were lots of people lined up like parked cars all around me on that hall way wall.  In fact there were several dozen people lined up this way through out the entire ER wing.  That was in addition to the lucky few that actually were in rooms in the ER and there was a fair amount of them.

I was told this is where I was to stay until I received a room upstairs for my stay.  When I asked how long that might be, I was met with answers that translated as "a long time from now, who knows".  Under normal circumstances, this might have pissed me off.  But I was so ill at the time and so worried about what could be wrong, that I just rolled with it.  A lesson I would be re-taught later as well. 

My wife sat on a chair next to my gurney through the night.  We arrived there at about 4:30am, the Sun rose without us seeing it, and at about 10:00am or so, some nurses came to start drawing more blood and run more tests.  We were both really tired and uncertain how long we'd be in this hallway or when I'd get a room or most importantly what was wrong with me. 

In Part 3, I'll get into some of the other extremes I saw that have to do with the stress that our hospitals are under and how our system is shockingly broken.  I'll also talk more about what specifically was wrong.