Howard University Hospital… enough said.
This time last week I was in the hospital. I didn’t expect to be in the hospital and I definitely didn’t expect to be back in 1957. Here’s my story:
Last Friday I woke up with a pain in my neck. I just thought that I had slept wrong, so I didn’t pay it any attention. I went to class and didn’t think twice about it. Saturday came around and the pain had gotten worse. So, I just thought to stretch it out and put some of those hand warmers on my neck (that I had from the Inauguration).
Saturday night came and I was about to go eat dinner when I looked in the mirror and saw that the left side of my neck was the size of a grapefruit! My first thought was, “OMG! I’ve been infected by something and it’s going to eat me from the inside out!” The second thing I thought of was that movie where people were dying from the aliens that were so small that they crawled into people’s bodies and slowly ate their organs! So, I was like, “If this thing starts to move around my body, then I would call on Jesus to rip it out of me. ( Something like, “Peace be still” and “Demon get out of him”) I told my friend Korey, who just started his job in a hospital, what was going on and he was said, “Maybe it’s filled with fluid…. The doctors are going to have to stick a tube in it and drain it out.” I would like to say that I was not terrified when he said that, but that would definitely be a lie. Let me just say that the pain was so intense that I couldn’t turn my head too far to the left or the right or my eyes would tear up. The only relief came when I got in the shower and the hot water loosened it up.
After I got out the shower that night I had two main thoughts. The first came from My Big Fat Greek Wedding when the aunt was telling her nieces future parents- in- law that she used to have a lump on her neck that the doctors found out was her twin. “In the lump they found two teeth and a spinal cord. Inside the lump was my twin” (You remember that! lol) Then the other thought I had was about that movie where the girl’s twin was trying to come “into life” but the only way her twin could do that was if she died. So, let’s just say Saturday night was painful and scary. Around 2:30am I decided that I had to go to the Student Health Center the next morning.
Sunday, I woke up and took a shower, then made my way down to the Health Center. The shuttle didn’t appear to be running that early, so I walked. The sad part is that, since I go to an HBCU and someone declared that students don’t get sick on the weekends, the Student Health Center was closed. As I walked over to the Hospital (HUH), I began to prepare myself mentally for the rudeness of Howard employees, much in the same way I prepare myself for when I go to the Administration Building.
I didn’t feel like I had an emergency, so I didn’t go into the Emergency Room. I walked into the lobby of the hospital and approached the security counter and explained that I was trying to go to the Health Center. “It’s closed.” (Thought: MF, I see that.) But I said, “Ok, is there anyone here that I can see quickly?” She then points to her right. I said, “Excuse me I didn’t hear you.” (My frustration was about to come out) She then looked at me as if I were crazy and said, “The Emergency Room.” I just walked away because I knew that this pain in my neck would have forced me to say somethings that my grandparents would not have been too proud of.
I walked into the Emergency Room and the first thing I noticed was the fact that there was a mentally ill lady who was standing in the only path that I could take to get to the Emergency Room desk. She had on a long, black mink coat, a red dress, sweat pants, a white shoe and a black shoe. They were both for the right foot. She was talking to herself, cursing and muttering something under her breath. I said, “Jesus,” then proceeded toward the desk. There was no one at the desk, of course. So, I went over to the windows that they had over to the far left. The lady didn’t even look up when she said, “Were you called up here?” I said no and that I had just walked into the room. “Well, you need to fill out that form over there.”… “that form over there.” (Hmm… so specific) I said, “What form?” And she told me that I needed to fill out the form that was on the desk that I, “clearly just passed.” Once again, I had to walk away.
I got the form and went to sit down and fill it out when I noticed that there were people sitting in the Emergency Room who were clearly not sick, because they were playing Spades. (…only at an HBCU) So, I sat across from them and quickly filled out the form. After I returned it and let the lady, who was MIA from the desk about 5 minutes ago, know that this was the first time I had ever been to that hospital I returned to my seat next to the Spades-playing Black people. After about 20 minutes and 3 games later I began to get a headache, because they were make a whole bunch of noise– not to mention another one of their friends showed up with his wife who was having back pain. They proceeded to explain to her that she wouldn’t have back pain if she wasn’t on it so much. I nearly died when I heard that. That brief brush with death reminded me that I should tell my mother that I went to the hospital. So I sent her a text:
“Don’t be alarmed! I went over to the hospital to get my neck checked out because I have been having pains in it.”
I sent it to my Aunt too. Immediately, I got a phone call…. Good guess! It was my Mom! She began to explain that I shouldn’t send her a text saying that I went to the hospital. I should have called her. When she finally got around to asking me how I was and what was wrong, the mentally ill woman began to circle around me. I don’t know if my Mom noticed that I was nearly whispering. That was because I didn’t want to say a “trigger word” that would set the lady off and cause her to either talk to me or randomly attack me. I only say that because just a few minutes before she cursed out another lady who was trying to return her dollar that she dropped.
An hour later I was called up to the window that I went to when I first got there to give them some information about my insurance. Then I was sent to the waiting room for another hour. Finally, I saw a nurse who took my vitals and asked me what was wrong. When I said, “…my neck swelled up…” she took one look at my neck and said, “OMG!” That reaction, of course, led her to touch it. She then told me that they needed to do an x-ray of my neck. She sent me with Rodney, the first male nurse I encountered that week, to show me where the x-ray lab was. He pointed me down a hallway and said it’s down there. (…so helpful)
During my x-ray, the nurse yelled from the other room, right after she took the picture, saying, “Did it just swell up that big like that today!?!” Now, everyone in the hospital knows that my neck is swollen…. She sent me back to the waiting room to wait to see a different nurse. After another hour of waiting I was finally called back to the office of the first nurse I saw. (Total wait time: 3:00 hours) Little did I know, there was a second waiting area!!! I sat with one other lady for about 20 minutes before they asked me to wait on a stretcher next to a dude who was on the phone explaining to his friend that his arm was not broken and how he was going to, “sue the f**k out of the b***h who hit [him].”
When I got into a room I received a text from my Aunt who said that she was on her way to the hospital. I immediately said to myself, “She spoke to Mom.” Before my Aunt Dona and Cousin Xavier arrived, I was taken to get a CT scan. I had no idea what was about to happen. All I knew was that I had just told the nurse that I was not allergic to dye. Then I briefly saw the doctor who I asked, “What are they about to do to me?” When she explained the process I didn’t think too much of it. She made it sound pleasant. But when I got back to the CANCER TREATMENT Center. (i.e. CT scan) I began to get nervous. “What in the world do they think I have?!”
The nurse told me to lay down on the bed under the scanner, then she explained exactly what was going to happen: “You’re going to be scanned by this machine. It’s going to spin and take pictures of your neck. Now, you’ re going to begin to get warm and you may feel like you have to go to the bathroom. You might feel as though you need to throw up, but don’t worry I’m going to feel the same thing.” (Her last line was supposed to calm me…. Mission FAILED!) The machine began to spin and I started to sweat, because it was HOT! Then I looked up and noticed that there were two faces printed on the scanner. One was a smiley face, the other looked as if it were going to throw up. I thought, “This must be intentional, because I feel like the second face!” I just knew that I was going to throw up all inside that machine. But I kept telling myself, “it’s almost over, it’s almost over. Don’t you dare pee!,” especially when the spinning started to slow down.
On my way back to my room the nurse informed me that, “there are some people looking for you.” (My Aunt and Cousin/ Brother) Once I got there, my family walked in and began to ask me all the questions that the doctor asked me 5 minutes earlier.
I kept noticing that a doctor was circling my room. Every time he passed the doorway he was walking in the same direction. (weird) So, obviously he was waiting to come into my room, but I didn’t know why. After he had passed by about 30 times he came in and said, “I’m Dr. **** and I’m from the HIV/ AIDS department of the hospital….” That’s when my brain stopped and my heart jumped out of my chest. I looked at my Aunt as if to say, ” I HAVE WHAT?!?” Then the doctor said, “I was coming in to see if you would like to get tested.” That was the scariest 5 seconds of my life. It felt as if they lasted forever! Before I could answer the doctor was swabbing my mouth and exiting. Leaving me and my Aunt and Cousin sitting there in shock. About 3 seconds after he left we all busted into hysterical laughter!
Another doctor, the third one today (…since when do doctors have corn rows?), came in and told me that they decided to admit me into the hospital because thy were worried that my throat would close due to my tonsils swelling up. So, they wheeled me up to the main hospital area on a stretcher. I could have definitely walked myself. When I got there, there was already one other person in the room. He seemed to be just chillin’ and watching tv. Time passed, my family stayed for a while, then they left once it got to be late. After they left, I met my nurse that was going to be on duty that night. He was African. (Enough said) Well, let me just say this and move on: It took us 5 minutes for me to respond to a brief series of questions, simply because I couldn’t understand ANYTHING that he said! He didn’t come back until the next morning. I guess I got on his nerves.
The next day, after they kept me awake all night by taking my vitals every “5 minutes”, I noticed that another person was being wheeled into the room. My first thought was, “They are really going to put three people in this little room!” His name was Mr. Williams. He was about 70 years old and he made sure that he said hello to everyone in the room– except me. For the first two hours everything was quiet and relatively okay. That was until the nurse decided to turn on Mr. Williams tv…. First, he started to talk to the tv, as if they were addressing him in the scenes. Then he began to talk to his nephew who was clearly not in the room. Finally, the nurse came in and said, “Mr. Williams, who ya talkin’ to? ” He said, “My nephew, David.” I could see that the nurse’s face had a look of confusion and disgust. She said, “There’s no one else in here Mr. Williams.” He just looked at her and replied, ” What are you talking about? He’s sitting right there in the chair.” She looked at the chair. I looked at the chair. Even the other man in the room looked at the chair. There was a pillow sitting in the chair. The nurse looked at me and walked out. As night rolled around I began to realize that all the food they were giving me was in liquid form. Some stuff that they called soup, jell-o (which I strongly dislike), tea, apple juice, and water. Lots of water. That was day one. The first step on my road to insanity.
Day two was no different. They kept me up all night checking my vitals. Not to mention Mr. Williams decided to keep his tv on all night! (Like a certain roommate I know) You would think that I would be used to it, but it was so loud that the little sleep that I got was filled with dreams of the nightly news and Jerry Springer! When I gave up on sleep, I began to text people out of pure boredom. My friend Joey, who I’ve known since 5th grade, came by to see if I was okay. That was cool, because I definitely was not going to talk to Mr. Williams or the other dude in the room. Also, my friend Korey text’d me to see if I was doing better. Later that night my Aunt came by again. My second relief of the day, because I swore I was going to go insane right then and there! Too bad she had to leave….
Day three was an eventful day. This was the day where the nurses decided to bathe the other man in the room and shave Mr. Williams. A group of about 5 nurses came in with this big lift. They, somehow, lifted the man off his bed and carefully washed him as he laid there. Maybe it would have looked cool to see how they did it, but the chance that I might see a naked older gentleman, caused me to make sure that my curtain was closed. When they shaved Mr. Williams I saw that the nurse was covered, head to toe, in plastic. She even had on a face mask. She leaned into my part of the room and said, “I’m not taking any risks!” (LMAO) Later that day I had my “House” encounter. All of a sudden, about 8 or 9 doctors came into the room and surrounded my bed. I had no idea what was going on! All I knew was there was clearly one that was in charge. He introduced himself to me, but I wasn’t paying attention. Then he turned to the other doctors and began to ask them what they each thought was wrong. As they answered he simply replied with at firm, “No!” and moved on to the next question. I said, “This is like ‘House’.” They all laughed. One doctor, I noticed, was answering alot more questions than the rest of the group. And about an hour after the group left, he returned and informed me that he was going to be the doctor that followed my progress over the next few days. I said, “Wait a minute. They told me that I should be gong home today.” He clearly didn’t care about that when he responded saying, “Maybe tomorrow.” I immediately called my Aunt and told her everything. This day was the day where the doctors allowed me to eat solid food! Trust me, DO NOT take for granted the fact that you can eat chicken and beef and vegetables and all those other solid foods, because when they have been missing from your life for about three days not only are you hungry, but EVERYTHING looks good. But I was craving a Big Mac, Fries, and a Sprite! So, my loving, caring Aunt Dona brought me some! While my aunt and I sat in the hospital watching the news, talking, and eating MC DONALD’S, my friends Gerron and Michael came by to see how I was doing. It was nice to see that people were coming by to see me. That really puts things into perspective. Later that evening, my other friend Omar decided to come up and see me. He had been in the Emergency Room because of his leg, so after he got a brace and medication he and his friend, who’s name I have forgotten, came up to see me, briefly. That night, it was just me, Mr. Williams, and the other man who seemed to just chill and watch tv all day.
The final day was something to behold! Dr. Hernandez came into the room early and told me that I was going to be released that day from the hospital! You have no idea how excited and happy I was! I immediately called my Aunt, Uncle, Mom, Dad, Grandparents, and a couple friends letting them know that I was about to be released from prison! This day also got on my nerves a little bit, because once the nurses found out that I was leaving they immediately began to show me how “ready” they were for me to leave. ( I guess they figured my leaving created one less person to wait on) They came in every 20-30 minutes to ask me when my ride was coming and who was picking me up and that I needed to begin to get dressed to leave. I had to stop one in mid sentence and explain to her that my ride was coming and that I didn’t know what time it was going to arrive because, “my Aunt works and there was no need for her to rush and come pick me up.” Let’s just say none of the nurses came back and asked me about leaving again. When I found out that my Aunt was downstairs waiting for me, I grabbed my belongings so quickly that I didn’t realize I had everything until I was looking for my shower bag. I walked into the hallway, asked the nurse where the elevator was, rejected her offer for a wheelchair, got on the elevator, put on my jacket, and walked out the front door! It was just like the end of “American Gangster” when Frank Lucas walked out of prison and the door closed behind him. I WAS FREE!
I learned alot from those four days in the hospital. I learned that DC has a serious problem regarding the mentally ill and how they roam the streets and enter public places without issue.I learned that Alzheimer’s is a serious illness that is simply sad to witness. But what I really learned was that people show their true colors when you are in a situation that requests their attention. Just a simple phone call or text can make a person’s day. Visiting them when they are in the hospital or sick truly shows that you alteast have some respect for them, if not, it shows that you care. So, first I want to thank my Mom because she immediately went into “Mother mode” when she found out I was in the Emergency Room. My Dad, because he is ALWAYS there whenever I need help–especially financially. My Aunt Dona, because she was quick on the scene to give me the support that she has never failed to give–especially since I’ve moved to DC for school. My grandparents, because they, as usual, are always ready to step in at a moments notice and give the needed support. My Uncle Dave, because ever since i moved to DC he has made himself available in case I ever needed his assistance. My friend Angela, because she definitely kept me laughing the whole time I was there. She also kept me informed on what was going on outside the four walls of HUH. My friend Joey who was the first one to come to the hospital. Yejide who sent very nice text messages, making sure I was okay. Korey, who at first scared the H*ll out of me with the whole, “Drain your neck,” deal, but, as usual, proved to be a good friend! Michael and Gerron, who came to the hospital to see if I was doing better! Omar and his friend who also came to check in! Seth, who actually noticed that he hadn’t seen me in a while and contacted me and made sure I was doing okay. Jordan, my RA, who definitely was ready at a moments notice to make sure that my academic future wasn’t about to hang in the balance due to my absence from class. And of course the doctors and nurses of Howard University Hospital. Even though the service was a little slow, they did help me to a speedy recovery! Thanks EVERYONE!
Oh, you might be asking yourself what does 1957 have anything to do with my time in the hospital? Well, everyday the nurse would come into the room and ask Mr. Williams where he was. Every time he would respond, “St. Louis. 1957.”
