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).