Part II: Trauma!

You think it’s going to be horrifying to have your vagina flopped out in front of a room full of strangers. Truth is, you’re not even going to realize it until you’re having a conversation about your improperly inserted catheter with a nurse an hour later.

I had on a neck brace and was on a backboard so I had little sense of setting when I was wheeled into the hospital, but I did know that the people designing the hospital knew that the ceilings had to be interesting because this was the view a lot of people were going to have. There were like blown up children’s paintings up there. It got my mind off things for a few seconds.

I was wheeled into this large room with a million people in it. The EMT had prepped me for this—he said they were taking me straight to trauma and there’d be an onslaught of people to attack me. I like that he built it up so much because, like with a lot of movies, it didn’t live up to the expectations he’d set so I can look back and say, “eh, not so bad.”

But the questions certainly did come from everywhere. They asked my name and date of birth and then this glorious thing happened: people started getting my name right! And they used it a lot. I believe in what Dale Carnegie says—everyone’s favorite word is their own name. I got asked for a contact number for someone. I spat out Mom’s name and her home phone number—literally the only number that I actually know. I got really upset because I didn’t know if she had The Boyfriend’s number. I started conjuring up ways to contact him at work and the different avenues we’d have to go through at the University to get to him. I immediately decided no one was good enough at Google except for me to contact him. All was lost.

Then I realized they were cutting off my clothes. I only knew that was what was going on because the EMT told me that would happen. They were either so marvelous at it that I didn’t notice (creepy) or I was in so much pain that I didn’t notice. Oh, did I tell you I was in pain?

This was probably where it hurt the most because they kept rolling me and moving me. They warned me before hand that they’d have to roll me and it was going to hurt and when they did I distinctly remember going, “Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit” and then promptly apologized. Someone told me, sincerely, “Well, you handled that significantly better than most people.”

They cut off my shirt—again, very impressively—and asked if I wanted to keep it because, guess what, it was my Lil Abner shirt with the signatures of the cast and crew on it. The musical that I had the female lead in! Cut up! Arg! The question of keeping it was weird to me, like it didn’t matter because I just didn’t want to be dying, so I was like “Whatever…it’s okay, you can throw it out,” but mostly I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone. NAKED GIRL ON TABLE WITH FRACTURED PELVIS DIDN’T WANT TO INCONVENIENCE ANYONE. Story of my goddamned life.

After they got my pants off a woman with a glove leaned over me from my feet and said, “I’m really sorry honey, but I have to make sure you’re not bleeding internally, so I’m going to have to insert my finger in your bottom.” What a nice way to say you’re going to STICK YOUR HAND UP MY BUTT!!! But honestly, it wasn’t the worst thing ever. In fact, I barely felt it.

What I did feel was the four sets of hands prodding at and peeling back my vagina to get the catheter in. When the woman told me they were going to have to do that I must have looked utterly distraught because she apologized profusely. In my mind, tube in urethra = most intense pain ever. I said, “I promise I’ll just get up and walk to the bathroom! I promise!” She told me I wouldn’t be walking for a long while. Ugh. I gave in. Then they shoved it in. Again, not terrible, just uncomfortable. I imagine I didn’t feel the full pain of a lot of this because my hip was excruciating. Someone said it was wrong so they took it out and redid it. Someone else said it was wrong so they took it out and redid it again. I was thinking someone better Google “pee-hole” before they do that a fourth time because I love my vagina the way it is and never intended on piercing it. Meanwhile a separate group of people were at each of my arms sticking me and taking vitals and asking me questions, but none of it mattered when so many people were prodding my lady place.

Finally, they were like, “That’s gotta be it, right guys? I mean, we can’t miss that many times! Harhar!” And someone was like, “There’s no urine in the bag!” And someone else was all, “Flush it!” So they ran some fluid into what was supposed to be my bladder and after the thing that was supposed to happen didn’t happen, they were like, “Guess you just don’t have to pee!”

Great.

So I went and got a cat scan. I think. It could have been an MRI. All I really know is that the machine looked expensive and instead of the tech giving me directions on when to breathe, the machine did, so I’m positive it was expensive. Again, I contemplated asking to forgo it, but knew that would get me nowhere.

I ended up in another room, a quiet room, a room where only two other people at the most would be with me. It was nice. There was a curtain separating me from commotion. I really enjoyed this—for like two minutes. Then I could feel all the pain and discomfort. Blah. Some nurses came in.

Sidebar: The nurses I encountered at Grant Medical Center were some of the nicest people I have ever had the pleasure of coming in contact with. I feel so blessed to have been in a place with RNs, LPNs, and like all the other nurse-type titles that were that incredibly sweet. They wanted nothing more than to make me comfortable and smile at me. It was amazing.

Sidebar II: It was really nice to see some near-equality in the male to female ration of nurses, at least in my limited experience there. I saw probably 30-40% male nurses to the women that took care of me and that was cool.

The male nurse who started taking care of me made me feel really calm. Asked me about who was coming for me. He went to make sure someone was. Then a doctor came in.

OK, so I work for a doctor. I know they are not all sucky, but my experience with them totally was at the hospital. This guy was actually an orthopedic surgeon who had looked at the x-rays. He explained that it looked like I had fractured my pelvis and what went along with that. He was pretty cold, but how can you not be when throwing around medical terms? It’s a good thing I’m a fucking genius because otherwise I would have been confused.

I listened to him intently, I didn’t really ask for clarification, I was good the whole damn time he talked. Then he asks, “Is there anything at all I can do for you to make you more comfortable, Ashley?”

And my mind lights up, “I have this really intense urge to pee, but I can’t really go. I think this catheter may be wrong.”

His response, “Catheters make you feel like you have to pee,” and totally dismisses me and goes.

I was really angry because I knew something was not right but now I was totally alone. Every time someone passed by I hoped they’d come in, but it seemed to go on forever that I was alone. I had to pee so badly and I was still shivering so much that I thought all that was actually causing my hip pain. Finally the male nurse comes back and asks if he can get me something—I practically cut him off, “I have to pee something fierce!”

And a female nurse is walking by or had come in with him or he got her, I’m not sure as the urine was reaching my eyeballs at this point, and she checks it out. “Honey,” she asks, “Did a man put this in?”

“Uh, there were like twenty people, so I don’t really know. They did it three time”

Only a slight bit of hyperbole there.

She takes it, slips it in again, INSTANT FUCKING RELIEF!!! It was peeing without peeing. It was an empty bladder without movement. It was the best I ever felt. I almost cried thanking her.

Now the only question is this: What the hell did they actually flush out???

Coming up next: Part III: Visitors!