I need 30 milligrams of Tatianam Expositus….Stat!
Men hunched over in chairs with a knife protruding from their torsos.
We’re going to lose him!
A woman in labor running through the lobby with her cabbie, recently befriended amid quips, romantic banner, and heavy breathing on the cab ride to the hospital.*
Clear!
Weary nurses pulling a double shift…or is it a triple shift….peering across the fluorescent soaked room.
Basically, I was anticipating pandemonium. Pandemonium is not what I got.
My friend and I were at a show Sunday afternoon. Prior to curtain, she commented on a sore back, so I wasn’t surprised when an hour into the production she started shifting slightly, leaning forward and back in her chair. A while later, she leaned over and whispered: “I have to go.”
“Do you want me to go with you,” I asked in a hush. She nodded and we took off. The usher found us immediately and quickly led us out of the dark auditorium. My friend started to black out as we moved quickly through a secret hallway behind the risers and she crumpled onto the floor. At that point, I knew this was much bigger than just a back issue.
When we got into a little more light, I saw that she was shaking with the chills and her lips were a light shade of blue. We quickly decided that this was something that wasn’t going to just go away, and we needed an expert to check her out. So that’s how foud myself at the emergency room in the east village on a Sunday afternoon. And how I found myself with that pit in my stomach, anticipating all the hospital commotion primetime television has to offer.
AS we made our way through the double-doors marked “emergency room,” we were greeted by two clean-cut, smiling security guards who directed us to the left. There were no wounded thugs lining the wall. No running doctors. No yelling. It was as quiet as a library. They were calm and pleasant. This was the emergency room? Where was George Clooney? Zach Braff? Where was the drama? The drama had left this emergency room long ago.
They checked us in, took my friend’s temperature and moved us into a private room. A nurse came by followed shortly by a gum-snapping doctor and two back-up singer residents. The three of them declared my friend had a fever and prescribed a week’s dose of antibiotics.
So here’s the deal with a New York City hospital: The halls are empty and clean. The people are calm, cordial, and for the most part, extremely helpful. We were out with a diagnosis and prescription in under 60 minutes.
So it wasn’t the experience I expected out of a New York City emergency room, and that’s probably a good thing. While it would make for a dreadfully boring episode of ER, it made an efficient, effective healing resource for my friend. And that’s all that really mattered.
* I may have seen Look Who's Talking a few too many times.....
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