[ 07-14-03 ] [ 7:03 p.m.]
[ A story about hospitals and fainting ]

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate the smell of hospitals?

If not, I just did.

The emergency room at Theda Clark Hospital in Neenah is pretty bad, considering the thought of what exactly it is and who exactly goes there kind of leaks into its smell. Although they try to make it smell fruity, the fruitiness bleeds with the obvious smell of medicine and blood, making a smell so sickening that it's intoxicating.

Normal people don't tend to write about the smells of an emergency room waiting room, but I had quite a bit of time to think about it today.

Considering my mother was brought into the ER at 9:30 this morning.

Before you start feeling too sorry for me, I'll say right now that my mom is fine. Currently she's watching t.v. in the family room, laughing her head off with Doug at some stupid Brit comedy that likely Heidi got them hooked on. She says she's tired and has a remainder of a headache, but otherwise she's okay and she'll be going back to work hopefully on Wednesday.

Okay, now, why was my mother taken to the ER this morning? Anxiety attack, say the doctors. A combination of stress and a massive migraine that's been bugging her all week. Apparently, when she tried to stand up in her office this morning, she fainted and fell back into her chair. Her partner, Mike, thought it pertinent to call the ambulance.

When Mike called at 9:45 and told me that my mom was in the emergency room, I was freaked. This is the kind of scenario I only live out in my nightmares, one I don't particularly want to hear about. Who would, except for the rare few who detest their parents? Mike didn't know much, which made it extra hard to go to the hospital, not knowing what I'd see.

And so we sat. And waited. And sat some more. And waited some more. And I made a mental note about how sickening the smell of the place was.

When I finally got to see my mom, I was relieved to find out that she only underwent an anxiety attack and she would be just fine. Mom told me the whole story, and I was just happy that she was fine.

Now about what I'm going to write next: don't get the impression that I'm bitter and sour, because really I'm not. I'm just wondering why my mom got carted off to the ER, when all I was told to do was SLEEP?!?!

Last year, I was just getting out of bed when I got hit with a massive wave of dizziness and nausea. The next thing I remember was waking up with a burning pain ripping through my body. When my eyes came into focus, I couldn't see because everything was dark, and then it dawned on me - I couldn't see because my head was in the wall. I'd fallen face-forward into the wall that's next to what was Heidi's room, and my head was sticking there through that wall, in the footlong space between the walls of our bedrooms. So I screamed. And screamed. And finally I woke up Doug and Heidi, who (not very gently) pulled me out of the wall to reveal a chopped up face, cuts everywhere, particularly on my forehead.

Okay, now, when a person hits something very solid with their forehead and blacks out because of it, what's the last thing you should tell them to do?

Exactly what Doug and Heidi told me to do - sleep!

And now I wonder, what the fuck were these two thinking? I might've had a concussion and when you have a concussion, sleeping is the worst thing you can possibly do. But I wasn't thinking, because I had a massive headache, and so I went to sleep.

I remember waking up to my mother screaming her head off at Doug and Heidi for their stupidity. She immediately took me to the family doctor (note: not the hospital, like she should've) who just told her that she should've taken me straight to the hospital. Once we got there, the doctors said I'd been lucky, because I managed to escape the encounter with my wall without a concussion. They said that had the wall not broken, I might've suffered a broken neck and a concussion. So I have someone up there to thank for letting the wall be weak that day.

Oh, and as for the wall? The hole's still there.

But anyway, why did my mom get to go to the ER for fainting and NOT hitting anything, and I might've suffered brain damage from being told to sleep after smacking the wall?

I'd like to know the answer to that question. Something seems a little unbalanced to me.

Oh, well. I'm not complaining. If someone told me that I'd get to go to the ER properly if I were to send my head through the wall again, I'd decline in a heartbeat.

I think that goes without saying.

And besides, the least amount of time I spend in a hospital, the better.

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