It is ironic that hospital patients all need to sleep well, but it’s quite impossible to sleep well or long at night in the hospital.
My roommate’s huge family gathered around her at night. I’m not sure which language they were speaking, but they spoke a lot of it — and not very quietly. When they weren’t with her, she had two phones that kept ringing loudly and constantly. Another sound that rang often was a warning when she wasn’t breathing well. The sound was like an angry, insistent alarm clock. I called a nurse several times saying that someone needed to check on my roommate. Finally, someone came in and said that, since we were being monitored on screens, they didn’t need to have her machine so audible. One sleepless night for me.
The second night, my roommate had, if possible, even more family members noisily gathered around her. The number of visitors swelled as her condition worsened during the night. I’m sure her body had to be very confused with all the medication I had heard the nurse giving her. The warning bells and worried voices of family members escalated as she went into a crisis and a Rapid Response Team was called to assess her condition. The curtains couldn’t contain all the people gathered on her side of the room. She was taken to Intensive Care.
A kind nurse gave me a pair of blessed ear plugs, and with the other side of the room empty, I fell into my first deep sleep. I was unwillingly pulled out of my sleep by another explosion of sounds. I was dragged back to consciousness. Yet another person had been put into my room and this person was also attended by multiple loud family members and warning bells. Another sleepless night!
The nurse felt so sorry for me that she actually called the hospital social services the next day and asked them to apologize to me for two very loud, sleepless nights. To emphasize their apology for my discomfort, the lady gave me a $5 Starbucks gift card!! But I was totally exhausted.
My next hospitalist, Dr. A., dropped by a couple of times for literally a couple of seconds and said nothing to me. I pleaded with the nurse to remind Dr. A. that I had recently been in a different part of the country, had had a tick bite, and felt like I had a virus because my stomach felt strange and I wasn’t able to swallow any food. Her oft-repeated response to me was that I was far too anxious about my condition and should just calm down and let the doctors figure out what was happening to me. I definitely found her more patronizing than comforting. But she did get special permission from Dr. A. to give me Ensure with each meal since I wasn’t able to eat.
And suddenly a pretty, petite prophet with a dangling curl appeared next to my bed. She introduced herself as Dr. F., a fainting specialist who had just returned from maternity leave. She patiently listened to everything I described about my condition. And then she said, “You will not faint again. You will be fine. You will be able to go back to your activities.” I basked in the positivity in her voice. I also asked about the Cat Scan and MRI I’d had and she smiled and said assuredly they would show nothing because they had nothing to do with my fainting. She also noticed my dry mouth and said I was still dehydrated.
She then summoned an infectious disease doctor whose bland, almost wordless personality, was a stark contrast to her quiet animation. He looked at my hands and, from what I remember, acknowledged my earlier backache and headache as symptoms of my tick bite even though I never had the traditional symptoms of fever and rash of the Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. He started me on two intravenous doses of the very strong antibiotic, Doxycycline.
That night, a neurology specialist sent by my primary care physician visited me and said he would like to do a lumbar puncture the following morning to rule out meningitis. When I asked the side effects of the test, he said I could possibly have a headache for a week or so. I said incredulously, “After yet another sleepless night I expect tonight, you want to come at 7:30 a.m. and do a test that I’ve heard is very painful and will give me headaches for possibly a week. I’ll have to think about it.” That night, the most efficient nurse of all the ones I’d had, printed out information about lumbar punctures for me to make an informed decision. That decision was a definite NO since I already felt I’d had too many tests without enough evidence of needing them.
Although I got a new roommate that night, it was quieter and her few visitors kept their voices low. What I didn’t know then was that the worst was still to come.
To Be Continued…