Previously: The Medical Adventures of Sabian Chapter 2: Early Bird Advantage (2/2)
The Doctor’s New Advice
You’re at the clinic about to follow up with Dr. Mina Antonious because 5 days of antibiotics hasn’t improved your left leg. Michelle and Belinda are at the desks this time, and Michelle calls you in to see Mina.
Mina sees that your ultrasound results are normal, so he thinks that this could be an infection. He advises you go to the hospital emergency ward to get one round of IV antibiotics, because if it is an infection and it goes untreated, it may get into your bloodstream and once that happens, life-threatening sepsis can happen very fast.
Mina then listens to your heart for a bit, and hears a murmur, so he also wants to do a heart echo to figure out what that is. He looks up your medical record and found you already had a heart echo in 2018 that showed a borderline mitral valve prolapse, which is usually minor, but because things could’ve progressed in the past 4 years, he said he’ll request the hospital to schedule an updated echo. He also makes a blood test requisition form and checks a lot of boxes to diagnose any potential heart or other disease markers in the meantime so you can get all this done in the same day.
As you leave the clinic, you do something that surprises Belinda. You say “Bye” to her. That surprises her because she was working when you said bye to Michelle who was the one who helped you, but then you remembered her too. As you walk out and say “See you, Belinda”, both Belinda and Michelle stop for a moment and look at each other with raised eyebrows and wide eyes, then look at you, then back at each other. You can’t hear what they’re saying, but you imagine something like
Michelle: (surprised) “What? Do you know each other?”
Belinda: (surprised) “No, he just came in a few times when I was here”
Michelle: (dramatic) “And he remembers you?”
Belinda: (slowly, smiling) “Huh… I guess so”
At the Hospital Reception
Since the hospital is just across the street, you head into the emergency admission where you’re greeted by Jasvinder, and she gives you a mask. You thank her by name, and head to the emergency reception to admit yourself. Erika helped you get in the queue, and you also thanked her by name. Now, you’re waiting for your name to be called, so you wait by the area between Emergency Intake 2’s doors and Jasvinder’s work table, and you decide to chat with her for a bit, when she’s not busy helping visitors.
You ask Jasvinder how her day was, and she says “tiring, but I’m going to rotate to the parking lot soon, which is usually less busy, so I get to rest”.
“Parking lot?”, you ask her.
“Yeah there’s another entrance in the parking lot where we do the same thing, and it’s easier there”, she says.
“Ah, well until then, good luck!”, you say.
Jasvinder thanks you, then you sit down by an older man and woman who seem to be together. As you get comfortable, a man in a red shirt and big electric wheelchair with an extended leg-rest wheels up, pretty much blocking the entire walking space, and complains about something you can’t really make out. You smile to yourself, thinking “Oh, people will be people, sometimes”, and you look around, at the 8 or so people sitting near you, to see everyone’s reactions to this man’s grumpiness. Unsurprisingly, they all have pretty masked (controlled) facial expressions and only let themselves briefly glance at the man, if they’re not avoiding eye contact altogether. The impatient man leaves after about 10 more minutes of complaining about his leg and not getting attention immediately.
You lean over to say to your elderly seat-neighbour “Some people could enjoy the moment more, eh?”.
36 Hours?!
He says “Oh, I’ve been through a lot. I have cancer. I’ve been coming here for 13 years. Some people think everything’s the end of the world”
He goes on to tell you parts of his life, and you just listen to his stories because you’re always fascinated to learn the journeys people are on and how they go through them.
One of the things he mentioned was that he once waited 36 hours while waiting to be admitted to emergency, and they had to put him on IV nutrients because he couldn’t eat food at the time, and on top of that there were no beds he could sleep in. “36 hours waiting to be treated for an emergency, that’s insane”, you say.
You notice a girl about 19 years old come to wait here too, and you say “Hi”. You get to know her a bit too. You thought she was Russian, but she says she’s actually Belarusian and Moldovan, which are two countries you don’t hear about very often, so you think it’s really interesting. You have a nice chat with her, and then remembering the old man’s story, you ask her “What’s the longest you’ve had to wait in emergency before?”
“Hmm, maybe 16 hours?”, she says.
“Wow, the most I’ve ever waited is like 5 hours”, you say. “Guess how long THIS guy had to wait before”, you continue while gesturing towards the elderly man next to you.
After a bit more small talk, suddenly you hear a “code white” being announced, and the security room nearby starts vomiting officers who all rush by everyone to the inner emergency area. You didn’t know what a hospital code white was before, but now you’re thinking it probably means “dangerous individual”. After several minutes, the officers all return to the security room, and then finally you are called into the next area
Inner Emergency Area
While you’re waiting, you notice a clearly intoxicated woman being detained by two police, which you’re assuming must’ve been the reason for the code white. She was being a hilarious drunk, and you see the officer holding her looks like a parent who has no more energy to handle their tantruming child, which makes you laugh.
You’re soon called into a room to wait for a doctor, and as you enter, you see across the hall in another room the old man waiting there, and you both raise your eyebrows at each other, wave, and then shrug. You start to hear some intense coughing from somewhere, so you look down the hall and in the room at the end, you see the Belarusian Moldovan girl who you’re now thinking probably has COVID
Finally, a doctor comes to see you, and her name is Kaitlin Stockton. You tell her everything you can remember about your situation, and about Dr. Mina’s recommendation for IV antibiotics.
But she disagrees. After an extremely brief look at your swollen foot and leg, she thinks IV antibiotics is unnecessary, and thinks a second ultrasound of your leg is better just to confirm there was no mistake in the first one. She then advises if that ultrasound ends up normal, that a CT scan of your abdomen would be her next step, to check for any blood clots in the veins leading down to your legs.
She schedules the ultrasound for you, and you thank her for her help. She brightly says “No problem!” as she leaves to tend to the next emergency patient out of what you’re assuming is probably her hundredth patient of the day.
So now you’re in a circle. One doctor thinks it’s an infection or the heart, another doctor thinks it’s a blood clot, and in the meantime you’re no closer to finding out which one it is, or maybe it’s none of them but something completely different.
In the next chapter
In chapter 3 part 2: Scheduling another meeting with Dr. Mina, doing the second ultrasound, returning to the hospital…