I’d never spent the night in a hospital before. I’d had two surgeries over the years, but in each case was ejected callously onto the street after the anaesthetic wore off. This was to be a new experience.
Before I was shuttled upstairs from the ER I was told that the MRI was normal. No sign of stroke, bleeding, or clots in the brain. The EKG was normal and healthy. All my vitals were strong, and were in fact quite good for a man of a certain age.
And yet I was being kept for observation. I asked why this was so if the tests were negative, and was told it was because the doctors believed I might have clots in the veins of my neck.
My wife was informed she could accompany me, and then was told she could not when we got to the fifth floor. My roommate was asleep and they did not want him disturbed, so she was told to go home as it was after 11pm. She did manage to sneak in and make sure I had my phone before she left me there in the dark.
Needless to say I passed a pretty miserable night. I was put on an IV of anticoagulant meds. I was disturbed every two hours by nurses who pricked my fingers for blood sugar tests, who changed my IV bag, who cheerfully asked “are you sleeping well?” before jabbing a syringe into my thigh or giving me a paper cup of pills. I was routinely subjected to blood pressure, temperature, and pulse checks.
On top of all this my roommate was an old codger whose breathing was reminiscent of Regan Macneil sorely beset by Pazuzu. Any time I managed to drift off he would explode in a coughing fit, after which he would get out of bed, turn on all the overhead fluorescents, and shuffle around the room banging into things.
At 5am the nurses entered cheerfully chirping good morning and asking if I’d had a good sleep, to which I could only respond with sarcastic laughter. Again with the poking and prodding and the taking of blood vials. “I’m sorry to inform you” the older and more sour nurse said in French, “but you are restricted to bed rest and must remain prone until further notice. You might break off a clot and cause it to travel to brain, head, or heart. This would not be good.” She placed a urinal within reach and left.
So my first stay in hospital was to be the full experience indeed!
Over the next 5 days of strict bed rest I was subjected to all the requisite indignities. The staff were extremely polite and empathetic as they stabbed my fingertips and blasted a fat injection needle into my thigh once day. When I asked about the injection I was told it was another anticoagulant, as were the powder and pills I received with each meal. I was bathed in the bed and changed, and my linens were swapped out by rolling me to one side and then another. From the bed I could see only the sky and the tops of a few trees.
I think 18 vials of blood were drawn over my stay. It got to the point where the nurse could not find a vein which had not been pierced and so she told me with profound pity that she had to reuse a hole and it would hurt a lot. “Je vous pique” was the standard greeting after a while.
I met the attending physician around noon on my first day. His French was accented and I pegged him as North African, which proved true. He asked what I was doing there and I told him my story and what the ER doctors had said. He shook his head, and replied in French “I don’t think you have clots at all. I think you had a brief episode as a result perhaps of a sudden drop in blood sugar, or maybe some sort of migraine. By the way you are in gerontology in the gastro wing because there are no beds upstairs in neurology available, but the neurologist is in charge of you and checking your test results.” He informed me I had further tests coming, and was not scheduled for discharge today or tomorrow.
My roommate was an affable old guy who’d had a stroke and collapsed on the floor of his kitchen. He was a lifelong bachelor and had come to after several hours and called the ambulance. He’d been in the joint 6 days but was scheduled to leave on Monday. We chatted a bit and he was interested to learn that I was American and living in Treignac, as he lived in Madranges a few km away. His French was a bit difficult to follow and it turned out he was Portuguese but had lived in the Correze since 1987. He had a portable radio and liked to blast it all day. His favorite program was a contest during which the announcer would play animal sounds. People would call in to guess the animal. “Nope, sorry, it’s not a dove, it’s a pigeon, you lose!” or “No this is not a pig, it’s a wild boar, better luck next time.”
On day 5 in the hospital I was still on bed rest. My muscles had atrophied and I was having spasms in my back from lying prone so long. I’d sat up to relieve the pain only to be clapped at and scolded by a nurse. When we’d left for the ER I’d brought a magazine in case we’d be there a while, and had read the entire thing the first morning. My wife brought me my tablet and several books to keep me busy, and while laid up I read even more than the typical daily allowance. My roommate had checked out and I’d actually had a couple nights of reasonable sleep. I’d made friends with most of the nurses and staff, and was joking a lot with the doctor who really regretted my situation. He wanted to release me but the neurologist was adamant that I should stay.
I was adjusting to the “food” served in hospital (the most edible thing all week was pureed peas with coriander). On Day 5 two interns arrived and rolled me out and up the elevator to another level. I was given an ultrasound of the neck to check for clots. After I was all lubed up and scanned the tech showed me my veins and arteries and declared me perfectly clear and healthy. “No signs of clots or even of plaque. You have the neck of a 20-year old, with nice flexible vertebrae.” So the anti-coagulants and mandatory bed rest were completely unnecessary! I was allowed to not only sit up, but to get out of bed and move around. I celebrated my new limited freedom by walking slowly and stiffly down the corridor from my room to the Christmas tree at the end of the hall and back. Then I had a sort of potato salad with vienna sausages mixed in for dinner.
Friends visited and brought more books. I called my Mom and told her what was up and why I’d not told her days earlier. On day 6 I was walked downstairs by the doctor to another lab for an electroencephalogram. They attached a few dozen electrodes to my scalp and chest and then put on Pink Floyd and made me close my eyes. I had to breathe in different patterns and move my eyes in certain ways as they took readings. For ten minutes they flashed bright light patterns into my closed eyelids. Geometric patterns danced around my skull. I visited the Dark Side of the Moon and returned unscathed.
After the ECG I asked the doctor if I could go home. He gave me a wry smile and patted my shoulder. “The neurologist wants to do some more subtle cardiac assessments first.”
Day 7 and Day 8 were the same old same old, except that I was permitted to use the toilet and walk around on my own. Day 8 was the Friday before Xmas and I was starting to wonder if I’d be in hospital over the holidays. A nurse woke me at 5 am to drain another round of blood vials for further testing. They were looking at causes like epilepsy, migraine, tick-borne illness, MS, diabetes, but had found nothing. I had not been roofied at the bar. My blood pressure and pulse were healthy, my cholesterol was a bit high–but there was no indication as to what had caused my incident.
Around 9 am on Day 8 the doctor arrived and teased me by asking if I was prepared for another week in the hospital. I told him I would throttle the neurologist and he laughed and said many had promised to do so, it was why he stayed upstairs. My ECG results were completely normal, no sign of anything out of the ordinary. The neurologist had finally cleared me to go. They wanted me to consult with a cardiac specialist and a neurologist over the next few months but they’d found nothing to explain what had happened to me. French hospitals are the exact opposite of American hospitals, it turns out. Back home if they find nothing wrong after a superficial exam, they put your ass out on the street; over here they will search thoroughly and do every possible test to make sure there is no problem before sending you home.
I bathed myself, my IV line was removed, I changed into street clothes. I felt like a new man, reborn and full of strength and hope. After 8 days and nights of dismay and fear and uncertainty I was bursting with optimism. I took a last look at my prison cell, and even though it was cold and rainy and my wife would not be there to fetch me for another hour, I went outside and walked around the parking lot gleefully.
I’ve logged onto my national health web account and seen all of my test results. I have a lot of health data indicating that there is nothing wrong with me. As for the strange incident at the cafe last week, it remains a mystery. I did learn a lot of new French vocabulary in hospital, at the least!
Mysterium Coniunctionis 