am I shot or not?

So once I had to have emergency surgery because one of my fallopian tubes got all ganked up. This caused the tube to fill with blood, causing me to be in excruciating pain every time I sat down, and then, after a while, to be in pain all the time (the reason for this problem was diagnosed as trauma to my lower abdomen – four years of full contact karate will do that).

So, after about a week, I decided to go see a doctor, and was told I had to have surgery the next day before my fallopian tube burst. They wanted me to go into surgery that night but I decided not to because I’ve had surgery at 1 in the morning and it was pretty scary.

So the next morning, at 530, I walked to University of Maryland Baltimore Hospital. The hospital is about a ½ mile from where I was living. I had arranged for my boyfriend at the time to pick me up after my surgery. I will not name names. I will only say that he is a doctor and that he is world renowned in his field. And he is really hot, and at least at that time drove an Audi TT.

I got out of surgery around 1030 am. The doctor tried to give me a shot of morphine when I got to recovery. I was, at that time, wearing a huge yellow bracelet on both wrists saying I was allergic to morphine. I also had one on my right ankle. There was also a huge purple sticker on my folder that said I was allergic to morphine. I managed to stop him before he injected it but then was told they didn’t have any other pain killers in recovery and that I would have to get something when I got up to my room.

I was taken to my room on a gurney and then left alone for about 30 minutes. I was in excruciating pain (imagine having your appendix out with no pain killer) and wretching from the anesthetic, because I’m allergic (they can give you a drug to make you not sick, but I didn’t know that at the time). A nurse finally came in and I asked for something for the pain. She left. She came back about 15 minutes later with a ginger ale and some Lorna Doone cookies. She said I had to eat something and keep it down before she would bring me pain drugs. All I wanted was Tylenol but I was dealing with Nurse Bitch. I shoved the cookies in my mouth, chugged the ginger ale, and pleaded again for even an aspirin.

As soon as she left I got up and crawled to the bathroom to throw up my cookies and ginger ale. When I came out of the bathroom, my gurney was gone. In place of the gurney was a folding chair.

The nurse came back with some Demerol. I asked where my gurney was. She said she didn’t know and told me to sit in the chair. I refused on the grounds that I was in serious pain as well as sick to my stomach and there was no way I could sit in the chair. She forced me to take the Demerol (which I am also allergic to, I found out) and left looking more than a little pissed off at me.

After vomiting up the Demerol I decided to go to the nurses’ station in the hopes that one of them would find me a place to lay down. I was wearing a hospital gown with nothing underneath (opening to the back). I had on pink surgery socks, and my hair looked like Einstein because it was wet when they put my surgery cap on. My abdomen was bleeding from the surgical incision so the front of my gown had a huge blood stain.

I was on the women’s ward floor, and was one of the few patients there who was not having a baby. So families were hanging around to be with mother and child, and I got more than a few concerned looks as I staggered past them on my way to the nurse station. When I arrived all I could say was “need…gurney”. Nurse Bitch grabbed me by the arm and led me back to the room, pushed me into the chair, and told me to not leave my room again.

Right after she left I noticed that there was an empty gurney parked outside my room! I staggered over to it and climbed on top, lying on my side. I put the sheet that was on the gurney over my legs. A few seconds later a nurse came out of the room across from mine.

“Hey, can you push me into there?” I asked her, pointing at my room.
“Get OFF of that gurney right now!” she screamed at me.
“No.”

She started trying to pull me off the gurney but I was holding onto the bars as tightly as I could. An older guy walked by and gave us a look.

“What happened to you?” he asked.
“Gunshot wound!” I said, clutching my stomach.
“Leave her alone!” he yelled at the nurse.
“She isn’t shot!” the nurse yelled back. “She needs to go into her room and STAY THERE!”

People were starting to stare.

Dr. Boyfriend was supposed to pick me up at 2 PM unless they released me earlier. He was supposed to call to find out when to come pick me up. At this point it was 1130. I thought, I’m going to die of pain before he gets here. I hoped that he would call and they would tell him to come get me.

Eventually some medical staff person brought me a padded chair from the waiting room that reclined a little bit. I lay on my side seething. I tried to locate a phone to call Dr. Boyfriend but they wanted me to pay them $5 to make the call. I hadn’t brought any money with me. I begged them to call Dr. Boyfriend for me on one of their phones but they refused.

I went back to my room and put on my clothes and shoes, determined to walk home. I got to the nurses’ station and was sent back to my room. The second time I managed to get to the elevators by walking right next to a fat nurse wheeling a patient. But she noticed the bloody stain in the middle of my white shirt (bad choice of outfit) and sent me back to my room.

With nothing to do but look at the clock I counted the seconds for Dr. Boyfriend to arrive. He was an hour late (blame it on his South American roots). When he arrived at the nurses’ station all he had to do was give them my first name. They all knew what room number I was in. And he parked really, really far away. In the end, it would have been quicker to walk home.

Around 9 PM that night a nurse called Dr. Boyfriend’s cell phone, which was listed on my record as the “in case of emergency” number. They said they couldn’t find me and that I had been missing for a while. I was still attached to some of their medical monitoring equipment and they wanted it back when or if he was able to find me.

We broke up shortly after this incident…and, for the record, I was charged $8 for two 200mg tablets of Tylenol.