Don't worry about a thingIn Part 2 I continued my "report" to my patient advocate. It continues after being left alone with nothing to do...
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right
Singin' don't worry about a thing
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right
-- Bob Marley
Eventually Male Doctor 2 (in training?) sat down with me and asked if I had any questions. I asked what was the next step for my treatment since the morning talk show that the nurses had increased the volume for on the TV was growing increasingly inane (I question the value of gossip about celebrities in general, this goes double for people with mental health issues severe enough to be inpatient). Most of his answers were vague but eventually he decided to speak to me in private so we went into my room. He roused my sleepy roommate and asked for him to step outside to give us privacy and my roommate left. I do not recall how many times I asked to have my own room but I made sure every doctor and most nurses heard my request and each time I tried to explain the importance of my request without breaking down in tears – I am actually curious how many of these requests were actually recorded in my chart (a couple doctors told me “off the record” that I might have better luck with my request with the night shift). First I asked if there was anything I could say that would keep me as an inpatient past tomorrow morning and he indicated probably not unless they thought I was a threat to myself or others. So I spilled my guts about everything except my passive suicidal thoughts – I needed help but I knew that the longer I was inpatient there, the more depressed and anxious I would get. I cannot underscore how backwards this situation was – I was there trying to do what was right for my mental health but the deck was so stacked against me and I felt my months of planning and therapy leading up to this were not just wasted but being ruined by the most unhealthy environment I have ever been in.
He administered the 16-question survey that I would fill out each day before getting Ketamine. He seemed to want to help me and sympathized with my situation. He also mentioned the group therapy sessions I could join later if I wanted. We wrapped up and left the room so my roommate could get back to bed (I stayed outside, sitting alone at a table, waiting to be brought upstairs for Ketamine “soon”). All the inpatient people who were not in their rooms were in a locked central room for group therapy. As it would have been disruptive for me to enter the group late, I was assured by a nurse that I could join a group later in the day.
The group let out just in time for lunch which was delivered for all the inpatient people – my nurse said she would save one for me (per instructions, I had not eaten after midnight). Food is one thing that I can usually count on for comfort, sometimes even pleasure – and here I had to watch folks dig into their lunches and even though it was hospital food, it smelled incredible. It was at best teasing and at worst torture and I told the nurses as much but they just laughed it off and told me I would go upstairs “soon”. I do not care if no beds were available upstairs – there is simply no reason to deprive me of every comfort all morning and then tease me with food that was still hours off for me.
A barely coherent, obviously frail, elderly inpatient woman in a wheelchair was brought to the nurse station around then and we had a woman escort her and me upstairs for Ketamine. Due to the elevator still being out or whatever, we had to take some bizarre route that involved me holding several doors open so our single escort could push the patient’s wheelchair. I was glad I could be of some service but it makes me wonder if an additional escort would have been needed had I not been there. Once in the ECT/Ketamine area with all the beds I lost track of the escort so it was just us two inpatients and an ECT/Ketamine nurse with a sort of Jamaican accent in our end of the long room. This nurse decided on her own to move this woman from wheelchair to bed. I stood about 10 feet away as I witnessed this patient shaking uncontrollably and making audible sounds of pain as she clearly lacked the strength to help make the transition between chair and bed. The nurse told her over and over during this process, in a scolding tone, “Calm down! Calm down! Calm down!” as she shook like a leaf. The transfer probably took less than a minute but the patient was a wreck physically and emotionally – it was not her fault she lacked the strength to help!
Then I was assigned the bed next to this woman’s and was able to get situated under my own power, all the while hearing this woman sobbing. The same Jamaican-sounding nurse tried to placate her asking what was wrong but between what just happened to her and her general “out-of-it-ness” from age or meds or whatever, this patient only had moments of coherency (I was in the bed next to her for some time while our IVs were started and things were prepared for our treatments). This nurse also asked questions to the woman including “you are getting ECT, right?” when everything I had heard indicated that she was there for Ketamine just like me. Once I pieced together various exchanges, I understood the woman had had ECT recently (maybe as part of her same inpatient stay there) but her responses to questions like that and “do you know what you are here for” and “do you know what ECT is” were full of doubt and confusion. The nurse drew a conclusion from all this that she was here for ECT and told her multiple times that they would get her ready for ECT. The curtain between us was pulled by this time so I did not see what was happening but the chaos and sounds did not inspire confidence. I then spoke up, as gently as I could: “Excuse me, but I am pretty sure she is here for Ketamine like I am – we came up from the inpatient area together.” The nurse responded to me that no, she was here for ECT and talked to herself for a while sort of under her breath so I was not sure of her full response. A bit more forcefully I said through the curtain: “What they told us downstairs is that we were being brought up for Ketamine, I mean maybe they were wrong but it was doctors telling us this…” The nurse got angry and came over to my side of the curtain to express her frustration. I did what I could to defuse the tension but after a minute or two of sometimes unintelligible words from her (her accent combined with my tinnitus/dyslexia were not making things easy), she finally checked the woman’s chart and began what I can only describe as a loud but sing-songy laugh of “oh, oh, oh! I thought you were here for ECT! Oh, oh, oh, I was preparing you for ECT” as other nurses/techs started to take interest in the situation the three of us were in.
Next this nurse decided to start my IV. I warned her that my veins are not great which she seemed to appreciate as she tightened the rubber tourniquet on my left forearm, looking for a decent vein in my left hand. She commented that I was so hairy and proceeded to adjust and re-adjust the tourniquet several times. She made it tighter and tighter and dragged it along my arm catching more arm hair between the layers of rubber with each adjustment as her sing-songy “oh, oh, oh, you are so hairy!” laugh got louder. Before I could say that it was too tight and that my arm hair was being pulled, she yanked on the tourniquet so hard that I made a loud yelping sound involuntarily. “Oh, oh, oh did I hurt you? I’m sorry…” But message received: try to correct her and you will suffer. I have had dozens of IVs started over the decades, not to mention donating literally gallons of whole blood in total, and not once did a tourniquet cause me pain much less grab arm hair. Again, not confidence-inspiring.
After a while Male Doctor 1 arrived. I was on-again, off-again in tears from what seemed to me like torture and psychological warfare. Female Doctor 1 had allowed me to have my mobile phone while upstairs so I was messaging my psychotherapist about the situation who messaged back that I should ask for a fast-acting anxiety med which I did as soon as I could. Male Doctor 1 responded quickly with an Ativan push which helped a bit. I also messaged my psychotherapist with my passcode so she could check on my status later. Male Doctor 1 was obviously busy, probably overworked like so many in the mental health field, but did not seem able to empathize with my inability to describe how my depression was lately. Even if you do not experience anxiety personally, try this little experiment for me: close your eyes and imagine four hours of fight-or-flight responses one after another and then try to answer questions about your mood.
Continued in Part 4 which should be posted, blog software willing, in 3 days.
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