Is It Good or Bad When the ER Staff Remembers Your Name?

Last night, because there is something wrong with my brain, I sat down to play a level of Candy Crush at 10:30, and five minutes later it was 1:45 AM.  I trudged up to bed, knowing that I was going to be tired in the morning, and this was confirmed a short time later when my four-year-old climbed into bed with us shouting “Hi Daddy!  I’m happy to see you!”  This was not what I wanted to hear at 2:something in the morning, but I did manage to fall asleep at some point.

I know I fell asleep, because at 3:05 my wife woke me up in a panic.  Edward was having a major seizure, and it had been going on for a couple of minutes with no signs of stopping.  The EMTs were there six minutes later, and I wasn’t very helpful to them because I was, in all of the important ways, still asleep.  My eyes were open, and my mouth was saying things, but it was happening in a vacuum, disconnected from everything else.  Luckily the EMTs didn’t need much info, because they were just here a week and a half ago and they all remembered us.

When we got to the ER, the attending nurse walked in and said hello to us, and informed me that she had been our nurse the last time as well, and she remembered us also.  I think I said something like “Blerghkjd?  Graaawrsh.  Ungggrrrrr……” and then collapsed into a chair.  Luckily the nurse spoke “Braindead Parent,” and she smiled, wrote something down, and walked away.

Edward was not happy to be back in the hospital, which he made known as loudly as possible.  He refused to be examined, he tried to rip his bracelet off, and he told the nurse that he did not like her.  He needed his mother.  So I called her, and she woke up big sister, and they both arrived at the hospital sometime around 4 AM.  “Oh, this is the room we had last time,” Ruby said, after all of the hugging had temporarily paused.  Well, at least we were somewhere comfortable and familiar.

On the one hand, I am immensely grateful to have a bunch of people who are friendly and familiar with my family and their various health problems.  But on the other hand, shouldn’t the emergency room and back of an ambulance be places that you spend a rather limited number of visits?  If I wanted to go somewhere where everyone knew my name, I’d go to Cheers.  Somehow this idea that our life now includes regular trips to the hospital (again) made me very sad.

The neurologist came in and told us that he was going to start Edward on medicine.  The bad news is that, since every episode that we’ve had has been different (unlike his sister), he is unlikely to grow out of this, and we are starting him on a journey of medication that will last the rest of his life.  The good news is that Dunkin’ Donuts opens at 5 AM.  So we are home, we have donuts, and we have had up to thirty minutes of sleep.  2 out of 3 ain’t bad.