Urgent Care

My Friday started out okay, but things took a bit of a dive between three and four pm, when I realized the following: 

a) Twenty-four kids had showed up to YouthCAN that day -- up from 18 over the summer. This is great, of course: that so many of our students brought their friends and cousins to join us is a ringing endorsement of the program. The problem is, I'm not sure how to plug the new kids into this session's work, which involves putting together an exhibition of the art everyone produced this summer. Frankly, I already had some concerns about keeping 18 teenagers productively engaged in a 15'x15' gallery space. And now, here were six more eager faces beaming up at me. Nevermind that none of the new students had produced any art for the show -- we didn't even have enough chairs for them.

b) The YouthCAN laptop had gone missing, sometime during our two weeks of downtime. This sucks on a number of levels: not only is the laptop the better of our two computers by several orders of magnitude, and the only way we can use the classroom projector -- it's also got a bunch of the students' soundscape recordings on it, and I'm not at all sure they got backed up anywhere else. 

c) I was going to have to run out at some point during the afternoon and pick up Josie at school. Normally my daughter is perfectly capable of finding her own way home using various public transit modes and her own two feet, but in this case she was just back from a three-day camping trip and had a sleeping bag, pillow, and duffel full of dirty clothes to carry. And she was tired. And all the other parents had come to get their kids, or at least made arrangements for them to be picked up somehow. Why hadn't I figured this out ahead of time? Bad Mom. No coffee.

We survived our overcrowded afternoon, mostly thanks to my unflappable assistant Mario, who hastily improvised a get-to-know-the-new-kids activity involving a giant carton of goldfish crackers we happened to have stowed away somewhere, and then oversaw the writing of artist bios while I ran out to pick up Josie. I got back in time to take the new kids aside and shoot portraits of them dressed up in kimonos and bowler hats (something we did this summer during our study of picture brides), which turned out to be an excellent way to get to know them a few at a time. I even had a few spare moments between sittings to send out hopeful e-mails to co-workers who might conceivably have an idea where the laptop might have gone.

Still, it was a huge relief when 5:30 rolled around and I was able to pack up the camera, log out of my computer, pry Josie away from the celebrity magazines in the break room, and head out into the weekend -- leaving the thorny questions of how to deal with the YouthCAN overage and the laptop's disappearance until the cold light of Monday morning.

Josie and I made our way through rush hour traffic to NewHolly, where Simon had spent the afternoon at Ella's house, playing Halo with her and her dad. The plan was to pick up both kids, grab some dinner, and head over the bridge to the Bellevue Skate King. (Regular readers may recall that this has been our Friday night ritual for a while now; in the last few months the wonderful addition of our friend Ella has livened up the car ride considerably.)

The crowd at Skate King was pretty thin when we arrived, so we had free rein to enjoy the brand-new, super-fast skate floor (and plenty of time to notice interesting developments among the regulars: Look, that one girl is wearing DJ Apollo's jacket! How long has that been going on? But it turns out that moving fast eventually loses some of its thrill, without slower skaters to weave in and out of. "Where," I kept wondering, "are the 20-something guys who haven't skated in a decade but somehow think they're going to pass you? Where are the awkward first-date couples who can't quite decide whether to hold hands or not? Where is the birthday party of screeching 13-year-old girls clinging to each other in clumps as they stagger around the rink?" And suddenly, as if on cue, they all arrived.  

About fifteen minutes later it happened. I was coming around a corner, still adjusting to the more populated terrain, and slightly distracted by the realization that now a different girl was wearing DJ Apollo's jacket (Apollo himself had spent most of the night skate-dancing in the middle of the floor without having more than a passing interaction with either girl, that I had noticed). Pondering this mystery, I came up fast behind a large wobbly guy, and made a split-second decision to pass him on the right, next to the wall, as opposed to on the left, where a group of screeching girls loomed just ahead. Unfortunately, he was listing to starboard, and far more unstable than I'd realized. Just as I approached the rapidly narrowing gap between him and the wall, he went into a violent windmill-armed tailspin and whacked me in the face with his elbow.

It hurt. A lot. Between the force of his flailing and the speed I was going, I don't think he could have hit me any harder if he'd squared off and punched me on purpose.

I rolled to a stop, retrieving my flattened glasses and struggling to regain my composure before turning around to face him. He was hovering there, sheepishly. "Are you okay?" he asked. "I don't think so, actually," I said. My nose throbbed; I was trying not to cry. "But don't worry about it -- I'll be fine. And it was totally not your fault." He rolled on his wobbly way.

I made my way off the floor and found a bench to sit on, still fighting back tears. I pressed my fingers experimentally to the side of my nose to see if it was broken; they came away bloody. The impact of the guy's meaty elbow had driven my glasses into the bridge of my nose. The gash wasn't gushing blood, by any means, but there was a steady ooze. I flagged Ella down and had her meet me in the bathroom with some napkins and an ice pack from the snack bar. One look in the mirror convinced me that a) my nose wasn't broken, but that b) I was going to need stitches. I pulled myself together and starting figuring out a plan.

I called Andrew to see if he could come get the kids -- somehow I didn't relish the idea of dragging them all with me to the ER. Fortunately he was available, and on his way in moments (thank you thank you thank you!). As we settled down to wait for him in the lobby (on those funny round seating pods that are obviously wooden cable spools, flopped on their sides and covered in carpet), it occurred to me that perhaps the management might prefer to have us wait inside, so arriving customers would not be greeted by the sorry sight of a woman clutching a bloody icepack to her face while pawing through her wallet in search of her health insurance card.

This sad tableau didn't last long, fortunately. As soon as Andrew arrived, I got in my car and drove directly to Group Health's Urgent Care Center (conveniently located just down the road from the skating rink!). The triage nurse listened to my story, surveyed the damage, and told me, "It shouldn't be too long, we're moving people through at a pretty good clip tonight." I plopped into a waiting room chair and settled the ice pack back over my face. It was just before ten.

About half an hour later a nurse called my name and ushered me into a room, assuring me that someone would come check on me soon. "Do you want the TV on?" she asked. "No thanks," I told her. "I've got the Ken Ken on my iPhone." I was plodding idly through my third 8x8 puzzle when a conversation across the hall began to penetrate my fragile focus. A woman with a grating voice was complaining about the reality show she was watching. "See? It's totally obvious she killed him, and that guy totally knows it! This is bullshit. Where is that nurse?"


Oh dear, I thought, looking at the clock. It's gonna be a long night.

Over the next three hours I unintentionally, often unwillingly -- but with increasing interest -- heard more than enough to get a sense of the drama unfolding across the hall. "I'm going through withdrawal from heroin," the grating voice piped up a minute or two later.  "If I don't get [a drug whose name I didn't catch] right away, I'm telling you -- I'm going to lose it." And a little later: "Every part of my body hurts right now, do you understand that? I need [whatever that drug was], right now."

Then she was pleading with her husband, "Press the button, get me some help, I need some help, it's really hurting!"

"No, they're not going to give you that stuff until they've given you all those tests." He sounded weary, annoyed. "Besides, I already pushed the button."

"Well, go get someone, then!"

"I'm not going to go get someone. I pushed the button. You just have to wait."

"No, I can't wait, I'm telling you, I really need it now..."

Finally her increasing agitation (and rising volume) attracted the attention of the tall blonde nurse who had just got through refilling my ice pack for me. "Yes, of course, I understand," I heard the nurse say, after a few moment's conversation. "No, don't apologize, you're fine. We're here to take care of you. Of course you're upset -- it hurts, I know. Don't worry, we'll get you what you need just as soon as we can. But first let's get a urine sample -- here, we'll get you to the bathroom."

Half an hour later I heard the two of them coming back from the bathroom. The nurse popped into my room and handed me a hospital gown. "We're going to need to irrigate the cut on your nose, and it's probably going to get messy -- not bloody, just really, really wet. You should probably take off your hoodie, at least -- and put this on." And she was gone again.

I changed into the hospital gown and went back to my Ken Ken. After a while I heard another nurse go into the room across the hall -- and within five minutes the woman was screaming. "You fucking bitch, you lied to me! You said you were going to help me, and you fucking lied! Do you understand, I am going through withdrawal from heroin! Don't look at me like that. I need you to help me! Get away from me!" Crashing sounds echoed down the hall -- a metal table being overturned, maybe. A door slammed, and then the woman was out in the hall. I couldn't see her, but I could hear her breathing, feel her presence. Oh my, I thought, I wonder how this is going to go...

I heard her approach the nurse's station, her voice sliding quickly from edgy politeness to shrill dudgeon: "Hello there... I wonder if you could find that blonde-haired nurse for me? She was real helpful before, and this other nurse isn't listening to me. She won't help me at all, in fact, she's --" And then the voice of the blonde nurse: "I'm right here. Let's go back to your room. We'll get this straightened out."

I didn't hear the exchange that followed, but a few minutes later the woman had calmed down -- though she was still sobbing quietly: "I'm sorry. I told you this would happen. I told you. I'm sorry."

After a couple more rounds of this, I was thoroughly impressed with the blonde nurse, who seemed to approach everyone involved -- including her frustrated coworkers -- with grace and compassion. I also found myself quietly rooting for this wretched, demanding  patient -- clearly she had burned many bridges in her life, but she seemed to be trying to do the right thing now, hard and painful as it was -- and she was sticking up for herself in the best way she knew how. I could also totally see how her husband -- whom she had obviously put through this same wringer more than once before -- might be feeling a little short on grace and compassion himself. More than once I took a break from my endless Ken Ken regime to beam courage and patience and strength across the hall to both of them.

Somewhere during all of this an aide came in to wash out my cut. This turned out to be a rather awkward task -- basically he had to squirt saline at my face with a giant syringe, while I closed my eyes and held a towel under my chin to catch the liquid as it dribbled down my face. We both found this pretty amusing.

While he worked, the guy regaled me with funny stories about a friend of his, one-legged as a result of an encounter with a land mine back in Africa. "He has a prosthetic leg, but it's so good nobody can tell it's not real. Like this one time he went to a birthday party at his brother's house, and wound up spending the night. When he went to bed, he took off his leg, of course. And in the morning he got up and went hopping down the hall to use the bathroom, and one of his little nephews saw him, and started screaming." Here the aide paused in his squirting to gesture wildly with both arms, imitating the horrified six-year-old. "Ai! Ai! Uncle has only one leg!"

"Another time" -- now he pulled another syringeful of saline from a big basin on the table next to us -- "someone in the community passed away, and everybody gathered, you know, to mourn together." I wasn't totally clear about the next part of the story -- between my throbbing nose, the dribbling liquid, and his accent, I may have missed some crucial details -- but it seems that everyone at this particular wake wound up playing a game that sounded a little bit like Truth or Dare, where people would write down silly little tasks on slips of paper, and then each person would draw one out of the hat and have to perform it in front of everyone. "Some friends of this one-legged man, they put in a slip that said, 'Wash So-and-So's leg' -- my friend's leg, you see."

These jokers then watched eagerly as some poor woman, who didn't know the guy at all, drew the slip. "She went to get a bucket of water, and then she went to wash his leg, but -- no leg! She fell down like this" -- he swooned, holding the back of his hand to his forehead dramatically, with the syringe still in it. "Yes, she fainted, when she saw no leg there!" He went back to squirting saline into the gash on my nose.

I couldn't help wondering why this gentle, smiling man had chosen to tell me about his one-legged friend's adventures. Was there something about my situation that triggered this story -- the washing, maybe? You think me squirting water at your face is silly? Lemme tell you about this funeral I went to... Or was he trying to help me put my not-even-broken nose into perspective? Does he tell stories like this to every patient?

Post-irrigation -- still oozing. (Sorry folks, this is what happens when you're trying to amuse yourself in a hospital room for three hours with nothing but an iPhone.)

Eventually the doctor came in to have a look at my now-clean wound. He initially recommended combat glue instead of stitches: "easier, quicker, and less scarring -- we don't want you to look like Frankenstein, do we?" But when he came back (thirty minutes and two Ken Kens later, after the heroin lady had been through another outburst and a man with a white beard had been wheeled past on a gurney, gasping) he told me he thought steri-strips would be better. "With combat glue you only get one shot, and I'm just not sure I can get it perfect the first time. I think aesthetically the result will be better with steri-strips." "Sounds fine," I said, suppressing a yawn. "I'm not that picky." "Oh, but I am," he said, drawing himself up in mock conceit. 

Leave the steri-strips on for two days. You can shower, but try not to get your nose wet. Don't do anything that might cause the wound to re-open. And slow down on the skate floor, lady!  

I walked out of there at one in the morning: exhausted, sore, and thoroughly sick of the Ken Ken... But with both my legs, full use of my lungs, and a life unravaged by opiate addiction. Not only that, but somehow a series of cheerful, patient strangers had found the time, between dealing with genuine disasters, to hold my slightly battered head in their hands and minister to my modest wound with tenderness and care. I wouldn't have called it urgent care, exactly -- but it was all the more heartening for that.