I dont know if it was the severity of my condition, or the fact that my mother is good friends with a big cheese at the hospital, but I didn’t sit in the little waiting room out side the ER for more than 10 minutes. I was on a stretcher, IV’s were inserted at my wrist and the anticubital (the bend of the arm), an EKG was performed and away we went. In the outside world the results of a Complete Blood Count(CBC)  test takes a few days, in the ER, it takes less than an hour. The results said my blood was in a downward spiral. I needed a transfusion. So we—-my mother, my father, and my brother(who drove in record time from Baltimore), and I—-waited. And waited.

Here comes a complaint. And no it has nothing to do with the tedium of waiting hours and hours in a emergency room, that is to be expected. Every patient there feels they are the priority, they are all in some degree of emotional or physical discomfort, their problem is the most important one. That mixed with an intensified, chaotic atmosphere equates to mass confusion—my father insists the problem is the staff spinning  their wheels, my mother thinks its a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth—whatever the problem, there is an undeniable lack of progress.

Back to my complaint. While waiting I recieved a chest X-ray. According to the National Institute of Health, a chest X-ray is ordered with chest pain (I had no complaints of chest discomfort), persistent cough or the coughing up of blood (  forget about blood,I havent coughed since at least December), or trouble breathing (my oxygen saturation never fell below 100, breathing was of no issue).

The reasoning behind that X-ray is layered: its covers the hospital just in case they face a malpractice suit down the road where a missing chest X-ray is the smoking gun, it most likely falls under the routine procedure tag a.k.a following mindless protocol; But most importantly its another line on the hospital’s itemized bill, another service that needs to be paid. 

[I have requested the itemized  bill of  my hospitalization, when I receive it I will post the price of that X-ray and everything else.  The eradication of fee-for-service health care will be addressed on this blog---probably ad nauseam---in the future,  for now I will get back to the story]

A little more than eight hours after I entered the hospital my first bag of blood was hung. The transfusion ran through the catheter inserted at my wrist. Prior to all this the phrase blood transfusion sounded complicated, terrifying, and something I was positive I wanted nothing to do with, I was misinformed.  A blood transfusion is the most painless, boring, unnotable process you can go through. During the two I had done on my first night in the hospital I ate dinner, read, used the bathroom, watched TV and slept throughout.

Lost in the chaos of my first day and night in the hospital was the ability to reflect, I’ll make up for it now.  I’m a wimp, I never have donated blood in my entire life, I made excuses when my father or my friends went and gave blood…to busy, to tired, deep down always to scared. 

Thank you to those who have given blood and continue to do so, it—-not to be a bumper sticker—-truly does save lives. As soon as I am cleared, donating blood is a priority. Enter your zip code here to find out where you can donate.

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