ten ₱esos

Monday, July 12:

About 12:15 my bed was pushed to the radiology department again, and someone thrust another bottle of  banana-flavored contrast medium for me to drink. Afterward I struggled to shift my body from the bed to the curved tray that slides into the CT scanner. I was glad that I had received an analgesic recently. I got several scans, from my groin to my cranium before inching off the tray onto my bed. I was returned to the multi-care ward at 1:00. I was too late for lunch, but  I wasn’t very hungry. I just lay on the bed, wondering what’s next. I’d heard that the CT scan results would be available in the evening. I wanted to know if any damage showed in the new pictures of my shoulder and back.

Eventually the physician who was monitoring the multi-care ward came through, and he asked me how I was as he paged through my treatment notes. I told him of my pains and of the new films which I haven’t seen. He obtained them, looked at them and said that my left clavicle, humerus and scapula weren’t cracked, a rib was cracked and small chips had been knocked off the posteriors of the C7 and T1 vertebrae, posing no problem other than irritation. This was hours after the last shot of pain medicine, so I asked if I could have more pain relief, because my left shoulder was very painful as if something were fractured, and my back and my neck were killing me. The doc readily ordered a nurse to administer something to me. Then he made a sling for my left arm.

When the painkiller had taken effect, I wanted to sit upright. I wanted to sit on a plastic chair, in a wheelchair or on my bed. I was so tired of lying horizontally and looking at the same ceiling and fan. And I needed to urinate again. Maybe I could hobble to a bathroom. I had no threatening musculoskeletal injuries. I was weary and dizzy from no sleep, no food, no caffeine and a painkiller which was likely narcotic. So standing and walking probably wasn’t prudent. I thought that at least I’ll use an arm to prop myself upright and sit on my bed.

After several minutes of sweating and straining and grunting with back pain and neck pain, I got upright, sitting on the side of my bed. Then I did feel dizzy/faint, perhaps from the strain. I grabbed the bed’s headboard. I regained my vision and surveyed my environment. All I had seen of it in the previous 21 hours was the ceiling, fan, curtain on the right and windows on the left. I saw two white plastic chairs beside beds, a wheelchair and no staff. I stood, then tested my feet. I could walk slowly to the windows and look out to the playground below and construction site across the street. I could shuffle back to my bedside table and take my two full urine bottles to the sink to dump. I had seen no sign for tandas/toilet/restroom anywhere nearby. But, as I needed to pee again, I thought that I’d look for a men’s room rather than pee into a plastic cup again. Although I was sore, I was enjoying my mobility, however slowly.

En route to a distant, overhead sign bearing a pictograph of a man, I happened upon a nurse who looked at me with surprise. I gestured toward the sign and told her that I was going to the tandas. In the men’s room, with my left arm in a sling pulling painfully downward on my neck,  I unfastened my size-50 trousers’ drawstring, used a urinal then washed my hands and face. What a relief.

I hobbled slowly back toward my assigned bed, sat on the edge of the mattress and removed the seemingly needless cervical collar and the arm sling. I felt even better. I felt slightly short-of-breath after walking across the ward, but I could open my mouth without the collar under my chin, and I no longer had the weight of my left arm weighing-down my aching neck. Admittedly, my aches had lessened since I received an analgesic, but I didn’t need my arm pulling me forward, curving my spine more.

Okay; so I knew that I could stand and walk. But I was groggy/dizzy/drowsy, and I didn’t need to go anywhere. I deliberated whether to try to painfully lower myself onto a plastic chair or onto a wheelchair (which offers mobility) or sit on my bed, back against the wall, legs on the bed before me (not too comfy). I really only felt like lying down and sleeping, to be honest. But while sleep in the brightly lit, noisy ward at midday was unlikely, should I lie then drape the pillowcase over my eyes and take a mental vacation until a physician does evening rounds and I can ask about my CT scans and dinner?

I noticed that a bed several meters away had the head raised; the bed frame and mattress were bent a third of the way from the head. I wanted someone to lift up the head of my bed so that I could recline while sitting up. I’d be fully supported as if lying on my bed, yet somewhat upright so that I could see the ward, people around me, even see clouds and birds outside, because my neck didn’t hurt to turn left and right. I wanted to be able to see if a physician is passing through the ward. So I shuffled to the nurses’ station to ask if someone would raise my bed. I didn’t know how to do it and didn’t have the strength to do it. The beds aren’t electrically adjustable as in the United States.

~ to be continued ~