by Katherine Christensen<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWild nights, wild nights were I with thee. Wild nights should be our luxury.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n -Emily Dickinson <\/p>\n\n\n\n As Abby and I get out of our Uber and approach BroMenn\u2019s emergency room, the waiting room is eerily vacant\u2014 the only sense of life being the man sitting at the front desk. Every seat, upholstered with fabric straight out of the 80’s, is empty. It\u2019s around 9:30PM on a Saturday night, and it\u2019s blatantly obvious that this is not the place to find some lively night life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It seems like an odd juxtaposition: I am panicked, gushing blood, in a place filled with calmness. Better than the alternative, I suppose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI had a bit of a shaving accident,\u201d I tell the man at the front desk, lifting my leg to show him my ankle wrapped in gauze. In the shower, about an hour ago, I managed to shave off a nice long and narrow strip of skin, and the blood did not want to stop streaming. Luckily, my cut isn\u2019t too deep, and I figured I wouldn\u2019t need stitches. But, I knew it was better to be safe than sorry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After raising his eyebrows, the man starts to fill out my information in his computer. The usual: name, birth date, address, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo, we\u2019ll label this as a laceration,\u201d he says, the sounds of him typing on the keyboard interrupting the\u00a0muted aura\u00a0in the room.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once he finishes, he stands and hands me a plastic cup to pee in, just in case I\u2019m pregnant\u00a0(as they didn\u2019t want to give certain pain medications to someone who was with child). Sadly, he tells\u00a0me they\u2019re out of wristbands\u00a0after rummaging through a few cabinets\u00a0on the wall behind him, so I don\u2019t get a souvenir to represent this trip.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bathroom is on the opposite side of the waiting room from the desk, and as I make my way into the bathroom to pee in the hospital-provided cup, I notice that the bathroom feels just as sterile as the waiting room. It\u2019s a single-person restroom, and it\u2019s cleaner than a typical public restroom, thankfully. As I take care of my business, the only sense of comfort in the room is the fluorescent lightbulb emitting a low hum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n How lovely. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As I look at the cup, the urine looks more yellow than I would have liked. Great, t<\/em>hey\u2019re <\/em>gonna<\/em> think I don\u2019t properly hydrate myself.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n After leaving the bathroom, they have a nurse ready to take Abby and I into a small room just off the waiting room to my right. In the room she asks me some questions: what time did this happen, how bad does it hurt, when was my last period, etc. She also gets some important health numbers: blood pressure, weight, height, etc. In-between asking me questions, she takes the gauze off my ankle and realizes that she doesn\u2019t have anything for me to hold on my ankle to control the blood still oozing out of the open wound. Upon making note of this, she rushes out of the room to get me a proper bandage before returning to finish up her paperwork. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Soon enough, we are ushered out of the small room, into the hallway, and to my left into a patient room where I am ordered to lie down on the hospital bed and wait for the doctor to arrive. Once again, this room feels very bleak and cold. To break up the hush that falls over the room, a machine above my head beeps every so often. I am not quite sure what the meaning of the beep is, however. Red biohazard bins sit on the floor at the end of my bed, boxes of gloves in various sizes sitting on the wall above them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While I take in my surroundings, the doctor enters through the open doorway. He\u2019s sporting typical seafoam green scrubs, and a big grin sits on his face. His presence settles me\u2014 I feel as if I\u2019m in good hands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo, what happened?\u201d he asks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI had a bit of a shaving accident,\u201d I explain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOh, c\u2019mon. You can come up with something better than that!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n As I stumble over my words, not being able to come up with something clever, Abby answers for me, \u201cShe got attacked by a squirrel!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere we go\u2014 that\u2019s much more interesting,\u201d he says, chuckling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He begins to inspect my ankle, taking off the bandage the nurse had provided me. He quickly becomes aware of the fact that he does not have the antibiotic to clean my wound. Does this hospital have anything readily available?<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cUmm\u2026 I\u2019ll be right back,\u201d he says, fleeing out of the room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As he leaves, my friend says to me, \u201cI\u2019m warning you, this is going to hurt. But, you\u2019re a bad bitch, and you\u2019re going to be okay.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I laugh in agreement\u2014 better laughter than tears. The searing pain in my ankle is only intensifying, and I am getting impatient waiting for relief. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When the doctor returns with the proper materials, another lady enters with a clipboard to get my insurance information. As I reach for my purse to get my insurance card, the doctor rubs my cut with the antibiotic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Fuck<\/em>,<\/em> I think to myself as the searing intensifies past a point I didn\u2019t know existed. I\u2019m a bad bitch<\/em>,<\/em> I repeat to myself in my head. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I wince, grabbing my leg as my eyes squeeze shut. Once I gain my composure, I take a deep breath, and the doctor lifts my leg to wrap it. I am only slightly embarrassed at how much effort I had to exert to keep my leg lifted a few inches above the bed, but the physical exertion is over before I know it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The doctor finishes wrapping me up, and the lady has me sign my paperwork. I am not even sure what I am signing; I am more focused on getting the throbbing in my ankle to stop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019ll get you out of here as soon as we can, alright?\u201d the doctor says, leaving me and my friend alone in the room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I smile and nod, naively believing him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thirty minutes pass by without a word from any hospital staff. I poke my head out in the hallway to see it is completely deserted, not a sign of life in sight. We realize that we would not be leaving as soon as they had so cheerfully indicated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Waiting in that small room, quietness became a nuisance. The beeping of the machine above me grows in annoyance, and my anxiousness increases as I feel the need to use the restroom building up in my bladder. The coffee I drank earlier in the day is still coursing its way through my body, and it is not being kind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My leg bounces, waiting for someone to come release me so I could use the restroom. They had left my sealed cup of urine sitting next to Abby, and the sight of it isn\u2019t helping make matters any better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I give up, and I wander out into the deserted hallway in an attempt to find someone who could tell me where the bathroom is back here. My Chaco sandals slap the wooden linoleum floor as I look aimlessly and helplessly for someone to enlighten me. In hindsight, I guess it\u2019s a good thing that the emergency room is so desolate\u2014 it means less people need urgent care. But, my bladder seems urgent, and I need care. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Upon finally finding a nurse, she directs me to the nearest bathroom\u2014 the layout of this bathroom identically mirrors the one I was in before, except it seems slightly less well kept. Toilet paper scraps are strewn across the floor, and the yellow lightbulbs flickers above me. But, my focus is less on my surroundings and more on making it to the toilet before an accident occurred. My body didn\u2019t need another accident tonight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I was hoping the relief would continue as I found my way back to my treatment room, as I am hoping someone would come to discharge me soon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Another hour passed with this hope. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While we wait, Abby and I go around the room and read all their signs and posters that they have taped to the wall. We test to see if we could read the signs in Spanish, her outperforming me by a long shot (she is a Spanish minor, to be fair). We find funny typos on the signs: them misspelling \u201cappetite\u201d as \u201cappetitie,\u201d for example. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We look at the list of words to describe pain, and we decide which ones applied to me in that moment. \u201cWould you say that your pain is searing? Dull? Burning?\u201d Abby asks me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAll of the above,\u201d I reply. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We investigate the beeping machine above me, trying to decode what the medical terms meant on it. We could never quite figure out what it was, never mind why it was beeping. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Once we grow bored of that, we resort back to silently scrolling through social media on our phones. Abby finds a quiz about Myers-Briggs types on her Pinterest, and we start to look up fun facts about our respective types: me and ENFJ, her an ISFJ. For example, we find one post that told us what jobs would fit each type. Coincidentally, as I am an English Education major, it tells me that my best job would be a teacher. Abby gets jobs like nurse and physical therapist, which are fitting for a Communication Sciences and Disorders major. I wonder what Myers-Briggs type my nurse is\u2014 maybe it explained what is taking her so long. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou know what? It is 2019, we are asking for what we want,\u201d Abby proclaims as she walks out the door to ask the front desk if we could leave. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Surprisingly enough, her proclamation worked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe said that he would call a nurse to come down to our room,\u201d she informs me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If my leg didn\u2019t hurt so bad, I would be jumping for joy. After a few more minutes, a new nurse walks in to hand me my release papers, including instructions on how to care for my laceration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou can wash your cut as soon as tomorrow. Just run some warm water over it in the shower. In addition, continue to apply Neosporin until it scabs over,\u201d she advises me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThank you for all of your help,\u201d I say, sliding out of the hospital bed. I wanted to hop out of the bed, but that landing might not be too kind to my wound. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My friend and I rejoice as we leave the room that started to feel like a holding cell. It felt like a breath of fresh air being able to leave the small space contained by those four walls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Making our way through the waiting room, it feels and looks just as it had when we entered: dreary, yet somehow peaceful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou be careful around razors now,\u201d the man at the front desk tells me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I laugh. \u201cTrust me, I plan to.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Right before I walk out the door, I notice a fish tank in the corner: a sign that there is more life here than I thought. The bright blue light in the tank provides a nice backdrop for the multitude of tiny fish swimming around. At a quick glance, I notice the shine of blue and orange radiating off their minuscule bodies. Several of them hurriedly swim around in the water, as if they are in a rush to be somewhere, just as people rush to get to the ER. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Katherine Christensen \u201cWild nights, wild nights were I with thee. Wild nights should be our luxury.\u201d -Emily Dickinson As Abby and I get out of our Uber and approach BroMenn\u2019s emergency room, the waiting room is eerily vacant\u2014 the only sense of life being the man sitting at the front desk. Every seat, upholstered with fabric straight out of the 80’s, is empty. It\u2019s… <\/p>\n