Oh My Gallstones

Staying in the Hospital During COVID: Part I

It began with a shooting back pain, unlike anything I’d ever experienced. It was Sunday evening and I asked my best friend and roommate for a ride to the emergency room. Upon arrival at the ER, I proceeded to vomit vigorously into a trash bin. After the great purge, my back pain noticeably improved so I convinced myself that it was simply food poisoning from eating too many fish sticks and returned home. Self-diagnosing a case of mild food poisoning from heavily discounted seafood seemed like the easier, cheaper, and even safer option. I didn’t want to be in a hospital during a pandemic if I didn’t have to, and I certainly didn’t want to potentially accrue a giant medical bill for an illness some Pepto Bismol and Gatorade could cure. As luck would have it, the nausea abated. As did the back pain. I took a bath and fell asleep feeling much more myself. 

But later that night the back pain returned. I still thought it was just food poisoning. I tried vomiting but couldn't. In the morning, I called my dad and explained the situation. Luckily, he’s a hypochondriac and thus, my walking encyclopedia of illness. In fact, I’m fairly certain Medi-Cal would let me list him as my primary care doctor. Needless to say, his response after hearing my symptoms was alarm. That’s not fucking food poisoning you idiot. He didn’t actually say that, but that’s how I heard it. He urged me to go back to the hospital.

I had my best friend drive me to urgent care. At this point, I was sobbing because the pain was all-consuming. Urgent care pointed us toward the nearest emergency room which, upon arrival, appeared to be less of a room, per se, and more of a parking lot with a tent. We were forbidden from physically entering the building. So, to the tent we went. Inside the tent were chairs that didn’t seem to be six feet apart, but I wasn’t able to confirm due to the crying from back pain (and lack of a tape measure). The wait time was going to be about four hours, according to a security guard. I tried to do that classic thing where I let them know that this was an emergency, and they simply reminded me of where I was. An emergency room. We hear you loud and clear. Still, the wait time was four hours. 

Unable to handle the pain, I called my mom and explained the situation. She urged me to get a ride to The Valley, to an emergency room near her. I agreed, and it was then that my best friend did the one thing I never thought anyone would ever do for me: drive to The Valley during rush hour. 

From the moment we arrived, this hospital felt more like a hospital. For starters, I was actually allowed inside. Upon entering, a nurse took my blood pressure with a disposable blood pressure cuff. She also had us remove the cloth face masks we came in with, and provided us with medical-grade face masks. In the waiting room -- which was an actual room -- certain chairs were blocked-off to prevent any non-socially distanced seating. While being sick with something else entirely, the threat of COVID still loomed.

Following my admission, doctors would call upon me every half-hour or so to take a new kind of test. Pee in this cup. Draw some blood. Let’s do a CAT scan. Now an ultrasound. The doctor was unable to find anything other than elevated liver enzymes in my blood work. So, they shot me up with some morphine and sent me on my way. They also prescribed me some pain meds and told me to see my primary care doctor in three days. This was Thanksgiving week so my actual primary care doctor was unable to see me until early December. I conferred with my secret primary care doctor, my dad, who didn’t trust this lack of diagnosis. I assured him everything was fine, and there was no way a medical professional would send me home if something was really wrong... Suddenly I’m the primary care doctor.

Three days later, I was trying to tough it out but the pain was going nowhere. Sure, the meds relieved it temporarily, but they also gave me extreme nausea. I had burn marks on my back from constant use of the heating pad. Throughout, I barely got out of bed except for when I mustered the strength to snap a few thirst traps in my mom’s guest bathroom. Also to run to my apartment to get my laptop and my pet hamster, Skip. Priorities. 

On Thanksgiving Day, I finally decided to return to the emergency room. Luckily, my family doesn’t really “do” Thanksgiving. My mom’s a foreign Jew who always viewed this day as a Christian holiday. We’re Jewish, why would we celebrate Thanksgiving? We’re not Christian. As a kid, it bugged the crap out of me, but now I realize she was ahead of the curve. In fact, in more recent years, Thanksgiving was a great “me” day. Christmas too. I’d spend the day solo, watching TV and ordering pizza. Before all this hospital business, I joked that the world would finally be catching up to me this year. Thanks to COVID, we’d all be celebrating Thanksgiving Stevenson-style. Oh, but how could I have been so foolish as to think 2020 would exclude me from its unique brand of universal fuckery? Wait, you’re used to spending holidays alone? Well, how about spending it in the hospital? Take that, bitch!

So, I returned. At first, they were extremely dismissive and made me feel stupid for even being there. The nurse taking my information reiterated that, if this was not an “emergency,” there would be nothing they could do. Honestly, by then, I didn’t know what “emergency” even meant. I was well aware that even being there was exponentially increasing my risk of contracting COVID and that my pain, however intense, was probably significantly less than what many of the hospital’s other patients were experiencing. I felt guilty, but at the same time, this pain was unbearable. After days of it not going away, the anxiety of not knowing what was happening had become overwhelming.

Conflicted, I pondered what being there meant. During a pandemic, what/who takes precedence? Am I being selfish for insisting something is wrong with me, even though it’s clearly not life-threatening? Even though it’s not COVID? But, who knows, maybe it is life-threatening? I’ve watched enough of those daytime talk shows depicting stories of people who seemed okay one minute and then, BOOM, they’re dead from something no one saw coming. I didn’t want to be the subject of a Dr. Oz episode and yet, I didn’t want to be wasting a hospital’s time either. Especially now. 

I hated that I had to consider this. I still hate it. I hate that the heartless fucks who run our country didn’t take the right precautions at the start of this pandemic. I hate that hospitals are overburdened, and mouth breathing idiots still take their masks off in front of strangers in-line at the grocery store. I hate that the system supposedly designed to help us actually forces us to fend for ourselves. After sitting there and hearing the dismissal in their voice, I was ready to leave, sorry for having shown up at all. However, despite their initial reticence, my care team ran another blood test. I thought to myself, Alright one quick blood test and then I’ll head home. 

Shortly thereafter, a new doctor arrived to tell me I’d be staying the night at the hospital. Uhm, what? I’d been so certain he was about to tell me to leave but not before chastising me for wasting his time, the hospital’s time, and the nation’s time with my aches and pains... but, as it turned out, New Doc saw something the first doctor failed to notice. In his words, something was “cooking”. On the menu: gallstones. Though not visible in the CAT scan, New Doc ascertained there was a blockage happening somewhere that needed to be relieved. My liver enzymes were even more elevated, putting me at risk of jaundice. Well, okay then. I stayed the night, assuming I’d be rid of those annoying little gallstones by the very next day and sent home long before sundown. 

I was very wrong.