Tales From the ER

Minneapolis ER Hennipin County Medical Center

My wife twisted her ankle late on a Monday evening, so we had to go to the emergency room. We live in Minneapolis. We envisioned, somewhere in downtown St Paul, an apocalyptic ER filled with gunshot wounds, severed limbs, and people in the process of being murdered by gunshot victims. We figured the HCMC ER would be paper cuts, skinned knees, and a bunny rabbit with the heebie-jeebies. Next time, we're going to St Paul. Or Baghdad. Or anywhere.
The HCMC ER is a hallucinogenic combination of real, screaming trauma, and people who – I swear to God – seem to be in there just to hang out and watch television.
I went inside to get a wheelchair, since my wife absolutely, in no way, could walk. Her ankle was sending flaming pillars of pain up her leg. I wheeled her inside, and an admitting nurse gave her a form to fill out, told her there'd be a wait, and told us not to block the walk-up lane with the chair – all without looking at us. I juked the wheelchair over to a low, dividing wall between the admitting desk and a TV area. While my wife filled out her form, I took in the people around us. A bald man writhed on the floor, occasionally heaving himself to his shaky feet to lustfully vomit into a trashcan. Turns out he had a kidney stone. My only experience with kidney stones was Al Swearengen's ordeal during the second season of DEADWOOD. Ol' Al squeezed his stones out with the manly elan of a true villain. Then he drank some scotch, slapped a whore, and won an Emmy.
The Kidney Stone Man in the HCMC ER was the anti-Al. He bounced womanly howls off the animal wallpaper of the waiting room. His family – a mother and wife – managed to look concerned and annoyed at the same time.
With Kidney Stone Man setting the high bar for desperation and need, everyone else in the waiting room had to dial down their drama. They may have been hurt, but not rolling-around-on-the-floor-and-puking hurt.
The stench hit my wife, wincing in her wheelchair. "Oh man, that really smells foul."

It did. Poor sweetie. She was trapped in that vinyl and metal chair, unable to escape the fumes. Her twisted, useless ankle had rendered her immobile – a captive witness to the horrors around us. It broke my heart.

The animal wallpaper distracted me for a moment. Lions, and zebras, and hippos and cheetahs, all snuggled together and smiling on the African veldt. I don't even think all of those animals live in Africa. And I know they don't snuggle together in a big pile. Maybe this was a way for the Mpls ER to psychologically soothe the people in its waiting room. If all these animals – predator and prey – can get along, can't you keep your yap shut about your grease burn or head trauma?

Suddenly, Kidney Stone Man was drowned out by two young women, who were palm-banging the plastic of the admitting nurse's window. Was someone in even more distress than K.S. Man? Was this a compound fracture, or someone going into convulsions? It sounded serious – the women were yelling in Valley-speak – far louder than the man trying to pass the high school ring through his urethra. The nurse finally slid the plastic window open.

"Can we change the TV channel to DANCING WITH THE STARS? It started 5 minutes ago! Pleeeeeeease…?"

While the nurse looked for the remote control, a child whom the two women cut off began a honking, phlegm-y asthma attack.

"Oh man, that kid looks like he's dying," said my wife. "Does the nurse see this?"

The nurse suddenly popped her head up, and spoke to the two young women. "Someone stole the remote yesterday! You have to change the channel manually!"

The two women groaned, threw their hands in the air, and sat back down. The thought of walking the four feet to the television, and actually switching the channel, never occurred to them.

Kidney Stone Man managed to shriek, cry and vomit at the same time. Asthma Kid and his snotty, mini-bellows lungs added a pleasing bass tone.

I couldn't watch the nurse not react to Asthma Kid anymore, so I took in more of the waiting room denizens.

A morbidly obese man, overflowing a straining plastic chair beside me, clenched his wide face with a muffin-sized hand, quietly weeping. A young couple ate Subway sandwiches, and chatted pleasantly. They actually looked like they had come to the ER to eat sandwiches, talk, and watch TV. Neither of them has anything even remotely wrong with them. Asthma Kid struggled for breath while the nurse made his dad fill out a form. Kidney Stone man cursed several different gods.

Just as a chubby Goth girl near the snack machine started singing "She Drives Me Crazy"(which I'm sure is one of Rogs favorite songs!), I heard a sound behind me.

I turned. My wife had heaved herself out of the wheelchair.

"I can't take this, I'm sorry," she said. She twisted her ankle until I heard a light crack!, stood gingerly on it, took a careful step, and then hobbled out to the car.

It was the horrible-ness of the room. The room had cured her. And I couldn't help feeling like, after we left, the admitting nurse yelled, "Take five, everyone!". And then Kidney Stone Man, Asthma Kid, Goth Girl, Weepin' Chubs and the TV Ladies broke character, and had coffee, and did stretches, and waited for the next case to work their ghastly magic on.

PS..Wild Stallions Rule!!