The Hospital: Part 1

If you’re wondering what it looks like to sleep in a hospital hallway in the middle of a pandemic, it looks like this.

After I showered and dressed, I gave Willis and the kids a big hug each and we piled in the car to drop me off. This time, I really wasn’t sure when I’d return. It wasn’t the false alarm the previous Sunday had been. We pulled up to Emergency at Juravinski, I told them I loved them and I hopped out of the car.

First, the COVID questionnaire. Still all “no”s. Then, onto triage. Sure enough, they were ready for me. They had a pile of bloodwork, ultrasounds, x-rays and CT scans my doctor had sent over. The nurse took my blood pressure and told me I had to wait for a room.

So… I waited. I took the time to talk to Eden and fill her in. If you haven’t read previous posts, I have known Eden since we were 5-ish. She is my sister from another mister. Literally. She knew my x-ray was abnormal on Wednesday and that I was going for a CT scan Thursday morning. Now it was Thursday at 1:45 PM and my text said “Got a second for a phone call?” Eden has three little ones. 7, 4 and 2 1/2, so seconds aren’t always something she has. But when she could, she called and we talked while I sat there in the waiting area of Emerg, longing to be admitted. Longing for someone to do something about this GD swelling. Longing to know if my doctor was right, if it was lymphoma. And if it was, please for the love of all that is holy, someone start treatment.

As we talked, Eden kept pausing. Pausing to say how fucked up this was. Pausing to say she wished I wasn’t alone. Pausing to say how much she wished she could be there. When something is happening to you, it’s easy enough to do the next thing. When I was pregnant with the twins I was met with “WOW, I’m glad it’s you and not me” or “Are you nervous?” or “I can’t imagine”. My thoughts were always “I’ve got this” or “No, I’m not nervous” or “I can’t imagine any other way.” And here I was sitting in the Emerg waiting room and listening to my best friend and realizing through her eyes that yeah, this is really fucked up, but feeling oddly calm about it. I knew something was coming, I’d been preparing for this mentally for a while. And truly, the only way out is through and I just wanted someone to take care of me. I wanted a room. I wanted to lie the fuck down and have someone else think about my health. Someone fix it. Please. Hook me up. Yesterday.

After almost two hours, I got a room in Emerg. I can’t remember how many nurses and doctors came to see me. Or how many times I explained all my symptoms. But I can remember the relief I felt when someone explained why I was swollen. It was called Superior Vena Cava Syndrome (SVCS). Basically, the mass in my chest — which one of the doctors showed me by making a fist smack in the middle of his chest just below that hole above the centre of your collarbone — was pressing on my Superior Vena Cava. From Google: The superior vena cava is a major vein in your upper body. It carries blood from your head, neck, upper chest, and arms to the heart. And, it turns out, if you have something blocking it, say an 8cm x 8cm mass smack in the middle of your chest, it causes swelling, restriction of breathing and definitely makes sense why just walking up a flight of stairs made me feel like my heart was going to jump out of my chest.

The nice doctor who explained where my mass was and what SVCS was told me Internal Medicine was coming to see me and they would likely send me home. It was literally all I could do to not scream “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? DO NOT SEND ME HOME!!!!” In a panic, I called my doctor’s office and asked for her to call me. The receptionist said she couldn’t guarantee when she would call me back (inside I laughed because I knew she would call me and swiftly).

Ten minutes later my doctor called:
”Hi, Dr. MacKinnon. I’m in a room in emerg and the doctor thinks Internal Medicine is going to send me home.”
”WHAT?!”
”Yeah, it doesn’t seem right to me either. I’m so swollen and uncomfortable. I don’t want to go home.”
We spent about 10 minutes on the phone. Mostly, her talking me off a ledge. Explaining that she’s not there and can’t make decisions on their behalf and that she wished she could be there. She had spoken to the on-call hematologist, they’re the one that suggested I go to the hospital. I thanked her for her time and her help. A few minutes later Internal Medicine came to see me.

The resident doctor was wonderful. She listened. She checked everything. I can’t remember if I screamed “FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY DON’T SEND ME HOME” (just kidding, I didn’t) but after getting her supervising doctor to come in, they said they weren’t sending me home. I wanted to hug them both. The older doctor, the teacher, told me SVCS can get pretty severe. You can hallucinate. They wanted to monitor my heart overnight and certainly I didn’t need to be home with a couple of 5-year-olds when what I needed was to be alone and rest. The older doctor also asked the younger one “do you want to tell her?” and she said something like “anterior intra” something something “lymphoma”. They wouldn’t be 100% sure until a biopsy confirmed it, but they were pretty sure that’s what it was.

The down side was, they couldn’t make the swelling go away. Not yet. We needed the biopsy on Lumpy before they could fix that problem. The treatment would be steroids, but they can interfere with results, so until then, I had to keep grinning and bearing it. Internal Medicine would be back in the morning. Get some rest. Get some sleep. It’ll be test central come tomorrow.

I let Willis know I had SVCS and they were keeping me for the night. I let everyone else who loved me know, too. My poor sister had called me that morning to ask how I was doing before she went to work. I told her I was okay, the swelling was better. When we finally spoke on the phone after her work day was done her voice was quiet, sad and small “What happened?” she had said, so I told her. The helplessness my family and friends felt (and still feel) make me rage at this pandemic. All I want is a hug. All I want is to be engulfed in hugs. But the pandemic robs those from all of us. It makes people feel helpless. In more frustrated moments, it makes me feel sad and angry. Most of the time perspective is something I hold close. But sometimes… sometimes it’s too much.

Anyway, back to the hospital. My wonderfully nice nurse said “I’m going to try to get you out of here, to a room that’s quieter”. My room, after all, was walled only in curtains and was in Emergency, it was loud, it was full of a plethora of ailments and aches and pains and frankly, I didn’t really want to be there in the middle of a GD pandemic. About 20 minutes later the porters came to take me to my new room. I thanked the nurse and waved as they wheeled me to another section down the hall. As we pushed through the double doors we met the nurse of that section. I heard them talking to the porters “something, something, something, hallway”.
“Um… what?” I said. “There must be a mistake, my nurse said there was a room.”
”Oh, I’m sorry, no, there’s no rooms here it’s just the hallway” said the new nurse, who I loathed immediately.
”Can’t I just go back to the room I was in?” We had literally left less than 2 minutes prior and it wasn’t that far away.
”Oh, I’m sorry honey, that room’s already gone” said the porter as she wheeled me to my room… I’m sorry… my hallway.
And that’s when the flood gates opened and my pity party began.

The two porters and the nurse wheeled me over against a wall. My head six feet from a bathroom as I cried. No one said anything. Not one of them. They just left. They just left me there alone in a hallway crying. It was awful and I hated every minute of it. And it was extra upsetting because “HELLO I AM A 36-YEAR-OLD WOMAN WITH AN 8x8 CM MASS IN THE MIDDLE OF HER FUCKING CHEST A LYMPH NODE THE SIZE OF A GOLF BALL ABOVE HER COLLARBONE TWO LITTLE KIDS AT HOME AND A WONDERFUL NETWORK OF PEOPLE WHO LOVE ME THAT I CAN’T EVEN SEE OR HUG OR BE WITH AND I AM ALONE HERE AND SOMEONE JUST ASK ME IF I AM OKAY! ISN’T THAT YOUR JOB?!?! AHHHHHH!!!!!!”

I went in-and-out of crying for the next few hours. Which I know wasn’t cool because by this point it was nighttime and the people in the actual rooms were trying to sleep but honestly I couldn’t help it. Eventually a nurse stopped and asked if I was okay and brought me some ice water. I thanked her for stopping and for the water and that it was a tough day. And if you’re reading this, I’m so sorry to the night nurse who was actually my nurse that night. When he came over to introduce himself and ask if I needed anything I complained about the hallway and asked if there would be a room at any point. He told me there wouldn’t be a room until morning, if that. Then he said “it’s good that you don’t have a room though, it means you’re not so bad.” I looked at him and said “I just found out I have a huge mass in my chest and it’s probably lymphoma but I guess it’s great that I’m not going to die right this instant.” NOT my finest moment. Dear Nice Nurse Man Who Was Trying To Help, I’m sorry, that was me at my literal worst.

Eventually, after talking to my sister, Tracy, my cousin, Lucia and Eden I started to get over myself. When I talked to Eden around 10 I cried. She cried, too. I remembered how helpless I felt when she was giving birth to her oldest, Jackson. How we didn’t hear much through the night. How her sister-in-law texted at 3AM saying she was having an emergency c-section and we didn’t hear anything again until almost 7AM. I was so worried. When I saw her in the hospital the next day I had a lump in my throat (figurative, not literal like that bitch Lumpy) because I was so worried she wouldn’t be okay. I told her a bit of that story as she told me how upset she was that I was alone in this.

My table and wall in my “room”.

A much used tissue box, water and a bell I only used twice because WOW did that seem obnoxious. The curtain on the left is further back than it appears, it is not part of my “room”.

When I spoke to Lucia she cried. And she swore. A quiet, angry “fuck.” Which she doesn’t often do. Poor sweet Lucia, who has experienced so much loss in her life. Who lost both her parents to cancer. Who sitting there on the other end was hearing that her baby cousin probably had cancer, too, and there was nothing she or anyone could do about it and to top it all off… I was alone. But then, I found my humour again. Not only was my head six feet from a bathroom, not only was my bed in a freakin’ hallway, but they were out of blankets, so my blanket was my coat. My wall was a tiny partition, my table had a hotel bell to ring if I needed something and every time the janitor came by (which was many times through the night) they had to move the partition and the table so they could get through. And the lights for the hallway were directly above my head. Yes, I would take the nurse up on getting me some melatonin and a face mask. Why did I say no to that before? Oh, right, because of the pity party. So Lui and I had a couple of good laughs and I said goodbye for the night and that I loved her and I was okay.

Me, post-pity-party deciding to try to go sleep.

I forgot to mention, in the ER they were out of pillows. So while I didn’t have a blanket in my hallway, at least I had a pillow.

I decided to laugh a little instead of cry more. I asked for that damn face mask and the melatonin pills and I did my best to go to sleep in that mother fucking hallway and be grateful that I was being taken care of. Even though my blanket was my coat. Even though my bag and all my belongings were at the foot of my bed. Even though my head was six feet to a bathroom and my whole body was swollen. If I learned anything from tandem breastfeeding two infants every three hours for six weeks, it’s that everything is always better in the morning. Things always seem bleak in the middle of the night. But in the morning, the light returns. Always.