Thread by @DempseyTwo

Petey woke me up this morning at his preferred 3am in agonizing pain. My foot was in a state of pain I had never felt before. Days earlier, I had been dealing with a sore ankle and calf. Before that I had been struggling with Dystonia. This wee Monday 🧵 is different.

I tried to walk it off. I tried to massage it away. It felt like a sprain. It was so tight. The usual after effects of a dystonia battle. No worries. But when I woke up this morning, something felt very wrong. I could not put any weight on it. Not good for the morning pee.

The carpet is vastly superior to tile for crawling upon. I made the two trips and thought, right, I’m in bed again. This is where I live now. The dystonia comes back. This isn’t getting better. I better take my pills now.

28 minutes. I should be better by now. The dystonia is at bay but if that sheet touches my foot one more time, I’m going to wake up the roosters. It’s been an hour. Yeah, this is going to require professional intervention. Damn it. Where are my pants?

Not in this basket. I really should fold these at some point. Not in this basket either. Ugh, when is the sun coming up? I can’t even see. I don’t want to wake up my wife.

Oh, but I have to. Poor thing, nothing like waking up to your husband crawling on the floor looking for pants he won’t find. She has to bring me to the Hospital. Not the good one either. I’ll never make it to the good one. Neither of us are happy at this prospect.

My wife wheels me into the ER, no one is in the waiting room except a kiosk and a person who should probably get going or she’ll miss her high school first period bell. She is wearing grey scrubs. She is not a nurse.

She asks if we are familiar with the kiosk, but it’s a check in robot. A kid introducing me to a robot in an Emergency Room makes no sense to me. She asks me for my license and she shows it to the robot. The robot isn’t working.

Just as my wife says ‘and this is about the time I….’

I look at her laugh and beg her to leave for her own sanity and safety. The girl in the grey scrubs leaves in a huff, with my license. She comes back and said I called about the kiosk. And I let them know you’re here.

‘Them’? Who? What did you tell them? You don’t know why I am here, now they don’t know why I am here. She hands me back my license and wheels me to the furtherst corner of an empty waiting room.

My wife left. Thank god, she’s safe. Another woman comes in, grey scrubs asks her if she is familiar with the kiosk. *She knows it doesn’t work.* It didn’t work just 2 seconds ago. Is she trying to make the robot friends?

There is activity. A security guard. He has the kind of hair and walk that tells you he has a YouTube channel dedicated to swords. His language is chivalrous to the fair maiden in the grey scrubs. Here come some more people in scrubs. Wow, she really did tell them I was here…

Nope. These three announce that they ‘just came down to see if you’re working!’ to the girl in the grey scrubs. I wished they’d asked me so I could tell them the truth. To be fair, dealing with Sir Chivalry from Security’s never ending advances from the realm must be exhausting.

Another woman comes in. Have you met the kiosk?

I’m here because a friend of mine *was brought in* and I need to get her keys. ‘Oh’, says the girl in scrubs, ‘is she a patient here?’

This is a conversation no longer worth overhearing. The woman sits in the waiting room.

There the three of us are. Quiet. Waiting patiently. Here comes someone with a stethoscope. This is promising! Not for me. A nurse takes the last woman to interact with the kiosk through the doors. Another blow to the robot’s ego no doubt.

The girl in grey scrubs asks me for my license again. The clock begins again and so does the dystonia. It hurts. The woman who came to get her friends keys looks like she would rather be anywhere else. Certainly not making eye contact with me while I writhe. She just needs keys.

A guy in a slightly different shade of grey scrubs calls my name. He wheels me through the doors to triage. He is talking but because he is wearing a mask and behind me, I have no idea what he is saying. A nurse 🤷🏼‍♂️ puts the thing on my finger and a bp cuff on my arm.

I explain my history and diagnoses and why I had to come to the ER. I tell them my medications. They tell me ‘you are a complex case. Dystonia, vertigo at your age. That’s not great.’ I agreed with them. They took my blood pressure. It was a bit high.

She wheels me around a central desk, leaves me in the hallway and tells me I am officially ‘hallway 5’ now. She leaves me in front of the ambulance doors. I wonder if she needs the blood pressure cuff she left on my arm?

A woman in blue scrubs comes over looking for number 5. I say that’s me now. She wheels me to x-Ray. As we approach, she sees another blue scrubbed colleague and asks which one she is taking. Then she says, I didn’t get the one I was supposed to.

I was a mistake. She is also the x-ray tech, apparently. I am instructed to get on the table. I am told to place my foot in certain positions. She says I look uncomfortable and I should scooch down the table. I ask for a pillow to lay back on. She tells me I’m on the pillow.

She snaps a few pics. I begin to wonder if I should have lead draped over the boys when the x-rays are taken. Then I wonder if this is no longer a precaution they perform for someone my age and I realize how fast life can go.

I now know for certain there was never a pillow because my head is now sinking into the table. If I am on a pillow, than this is a pillow in the way Dr Dre is a cardiologist. I’m mean, he’s got beats, just not heartbeats.

The X-ray tech needs more pictures so she repositions my foot by grabbing and twisting it, I scream in agony as a reflex. I really didn’t mean to, but the pain is really something. I can usually suck it up but this isn’t good. The tech says, ‘oh, is it your foot?’

Yes. Actually, that thing you’ve been x-raying is my foot. You know that thing that has all those toes on it with the ice. The very painful thing which prevented me from properly getting onto the table? Yes, it’s that foot like thing you just grabbed.

Photo shoot over, I go back to my parking space. I am again ‘Hallway 5’. Off in the distance, a gurney is coming toward me. I hear the man in the slightly different shade of grey scrubs ask the young man in the gurney if he was wearing a mask.

‘No’ comes the reply. Somehow, they both share a laugh together. A slight uncomfortable giggle which ends with the man in the slightly different shade of grey scrubs saying:

‘Let me get you a mask because you’re positive.’

Covid has entered the chat.

There are red binders emblazoned with the word COVID. Binders with an S. None of this ever had to happen. I am so angry. Everyone in here is doing the best they can. I can see they are exhausted.

Down the hall, I see the woman who came for her friends keys. We finally make eye contact and even through the masks I send her a ‘what the hell are you still doing here?’ and she looks back an ‘I know, right?!’

My wife brought my pills so I don’t miss a dose. Petey doesn’t like it when you miss a dose. But my wife left. With my pills. This could get interesting if I am here long enough.

Update: The doctor has reviewed my X-rays and get this…I may have injured myself.

Also, a woman in purple scrubs just walked by with toilet paper hanging from the back of her pants.

Here comes an ambulance, male, 40s, chest pain, shortness of breath possible covid. ‘Room 8’ was just admitted to the third floor so they have just become ‘334’. Room 8 now needs to be ‘Covid cleaned.’

Male 40s,chest pain, shortness of breath comes through the ambulance doors.

He is a body builder. He is Army Infanty. He is chatting to the paramedics who are hanging on his every word. Someone just coded on the third floor. The rapid response team is deployed. It doesn’t have to be like this.

The soldier is not vaccinated, refused to get it. He is telling the paramedics about when he was kicking down doors protecting villagers from the Taliban. He says the old ladies would bring the soldiers bread. He refused to eat it📌. He is now the new ‘Room 8.’ Good luck.

A walking boot for me seems to have appeared. Either that or they have just performed an amputation on C3PO. The woman in the purple scrubs has identified to a colleague that she had just been walking around with toilet paper hanging from her pants again.

AGAIN!? She said the word ‘again’, you guys. How often is this happening? Why is happening at all?

The boot is for me. I am wheeled to the waiting room. I say goodbye to the kiosk and let him know he is a good robot and wish him well in his quest to make friends. The waiting room is now filling in with miserable looking patients in blankets and concerned loved ones.

For the next 3 weeks at least, I am a walker person now who needs to check in with my neurologist because my dystonia just ripped the muscles in my foot and ankle apart. I might need something for the spasms. I am getting off easy. I am leaving.

I am not worried about COVID because of @KizzyPhD. I implore you to get vaccinated, wear a mask and wash your hands. This isn’t over yet. Everyone in that ER today, both ‘Room 8’s, the man in the gurney, all covid positive, none vaccinated. None thought they would get covid.

I await my wife’s arrival. A man enters the ER. He is wearing a mask. The girl in the grey scrubs blows her nose and asks if he is familiar with the kiosk. Maybe he’s the one, buddy 🤞🏻

📌 Imagine a world in which the only thing you may have to offer someone to show gratitude is the bread you made while surrounded by rubble and your protector refuses it. We mustn’t lose our humanity.