I have been a doctor for over 10 years, primarily in critical care, emergency surgery, and trauma. I am smart, educated, lucid, and well spoken. I am also currently unemployed and trying to deal with being bipolar and having PTSD.
I am also a public speaker (somewhat a contrast to the PTSD) and I have lectured many MDs on public health concerns such as zoonotic disease and bioterrorism. I have also lectured pharmacists and pharmacy techs. I am an accomplished person. This is not to brag, but to establish the meat of the story.
Tuesday, that was stripped from me in one fell swoop, like peeling a banana. In our couples counseling session, my husband, from whom I am not even separated, decided he wanted a divorce. This is someone that I have literally supported financially and emotionally. He is a musician who quit his job to raise our daughter. However, when she went off to school, he continued to tinker around doing music (marginally successful) while I worked 70-90 hours a week. Oh, and I was supposed to clean, cook, make sure all birthdays were taken care of.
I guess you are wondering why I would stay with him. Because we are married. And the person I married has been taken over by this 15 year old boy that needs parents more than a wife. Meanwhile, I get mad over every little thing. I am seeing a therapist, a PCP, and a psychiatrist and trying to become better.
So, as I was saying, Tuesday was pretty bad. I could not get in to see my psychiatrist, but I did get ahold of my therapist. She wanted me evaluated by a physician. She suggested the local teaching hospital, I think mostly because I have no psychiatric insurance.
At first everything was ok. I was stripped down and talked to the doctor and nurse. I was ok with a pregnancy test, but told them a depakote level would be inaccurate (any first year med student understands why) but I still cooperated. The nurse said they would have my levels back and as long as I was not foaming at the mouth, I could move on.
About 200 pages into my book, I got a little tired of waiting. I tapped on the window (yes concrete block room 6x12 maybe) and the new nurse told me that I could not see a doctor because I had already see one (I am going to try that line sometime). I asked to go to the bathroom and was handed a chamber pot, no toilet paper. Yes, and there were two cameras in the room. Now, not to get personal, but two meals of each day are a spinach, fruit, greek yogurt, and fiber powder. Lurching over a chamber pot knowing what was to come, knowing I had no toilet paper, AND I was being filmed....let's just say, homie don't play that.
I convinced them to let me use the toilet next door, then I showed them the three streaks of either blood or feces on the door. There were also cracker crumbs all over the floor. My feet were black with filth from the floor. The mat was wet for the entire 12 some hours I was stuck in that hell hole. When I pointed out to the nurse's aid the streaks and mentioned "E. coli, salmonella, and campylobacter," the idiot said "you have that in you." Well, not in my fingers bitch. And the GI tract is technically and embryologically considered to be "outside" the body.
I spent over 12 miserable hours in there. I begged for compassion. I begged for mercy, I begged for my doses of anti-depressant medication and bipolar meds. They gave me a single dose of Ativan. I was not some drug addled person asking for controlled substances. I had people that looked and laughed at me, but more often I was ignored. More than one compassion free person told me that she could hear me but that she was ignoring me. That is not apathy, that is antipathy. That is someone that should not be anywhere near patients.
About 3 AM, I was starving as I had not eaten since 5 or so. An aid brought in a box of "lunch" and I started begging her to please tell my mother what was going on, to please let me leave. I was a sobbing, snotting, supplicant holding out my paper back book. Just then a security guard shoved me so hard that I flew at least 5 feet into a wall and my book hit the opposite corner of the room. Oh, did I forget to mention that I had a riding accident the day before? I told them that earlier, but did anyone want to check for a brain bleed? Oh hell no, that takes work. Just shove the bitch in the kennel and laugh at her. One super nice woman told me to sit and act nicely like a "lady" for 30 minutes then she would help me. I read another 100 pages or so then tapped on the window. I was ignored again. I beat on the door. The nurse continued to browse MLS listings on his computer.
So, a professional with a doctoral degree that lectures to the interns and residents at this very hospital was treated worse than any animal I have ever seen. At least animals are fed, taken to the bathroom, and if they are anxious, they are sedated.
Now think about that woman that sits on the corner and rocks and the police take her in. How is she treated? What about the immigrant with a some TIB that thinks he is Jesus? How is he treated? This is not only happening in my city, it is probably happening in yours.
So, if you are depressed, skip the ER. They will only make it worse. I cannot even shut the bathroom door now. And I cry if I enter a bathroom stall. If I feel trapped, I get a little animal like. And now I am having trouble walking and turning my head. At least my fantastic PCP ruled out a bleed, like the ER should have done in the first place. I wake up with night terrors. After all, I had done nothing wrong. And I had lost all control over my future. I was imprisoned.
Icing on the cake was being led out in hand cuffs "for my own good". This was after the whole room cheered when they found out I was being moved.
I think that next week that I will go in one night in my scrubs and lab coat (extra long of course). And I will get that badge number that I was not allowed to get. And I will hand deliver a letter to that bitch that told me that she was ignoring me. And I will verbally chop her off at the legs. If there is one thing I know how to do, it is to make someone feel about 1 inch tall. I might ask my sister the lawyer for help...but she would likely tell me not to do it. Silly lawyers, always trying to keep their sisters out of trouble.