Opening My Heart by Tilda Shalof Read Free Book Online

enough. I got up to go in, then stopped short. I was in pain, but this young guy had a rapidly advancing skin infection that could be potentially life-threatening. In a few hours the bacteria could be in his bloodstream and he’d end up in the ICU , unconscious, septic, and on life support. Why didn’t this nurse see what I saw? Too busy to see the obvious?
    “Take him next,” I told her. The other patients looked at me in awe.
A saint in their midst!
    “Suit yourself,” the nurse said. I returned to pacing and tried to distract myself by reading the posters plastered on the walls. “Your Pain Matters to Us” and “Pain Is a Corporate Priority.” No one around here seemed to be feeling my pain. One poster explained triage: “Along with major injury, no pulse or breath, unconsciousness, bleeding, shortness of breath at rest, unmanaged, severe pain is a medical emergency.” My pain was an emergency to me.
The others have a low-pain tolerance. They’re exaggerating. They say it’s bad, but trust me, mine is worse
. I once knew a nurse who was a midwife (he was male so “midhusband”?) from the Philippines.He told me he used to offer women in labour two Tylenol and they were grateful for that. “I hope it was extra-strength,” I kidded him.
    At last, salvation came and her name tag read “Emma, R.N.” in cartoon letters, with her surname crossed out. (I’ve never understood the reasoning for this. Nurses say it’s to prevent stalkers, but how likely is that? Do we really need protection from each other and does hiding your name give it to you? I guess these days, everyone feels vulnerable in the hospital, nurses as well as patients.) Bent over in pain, I trailed in after Emma, who walked briskly ahead of me. She directed me to a cubicle with a stretcher and handed me a hospital gown. She looked bored, like,
Get me out of here
. I know how to take care of myself in hospitals, so I didn’t need her bedside manner, but what about real patients who did? In the hospital, emotions can become so heightened that a nurse’s mild indifference feels like cruelty. Likewise, for frightened or anxious people, common courtesy can come across as extraordinary compassion. “Thank you for your extreme kindness,” a family member once said when I accompanied them into the ICU for the first time; they felt my ordinary gesture so keenly.
    “How’s your pain?” Emma asked as she was about to leave.
    Here’s what I know about pain in hospitals: whatever dose or frequency of whatever drug is ordered, it all comes down to a nurse’s mercy; it’s in a nurse’s hand. In school we learned that
pain is whatever the patient says it is; pain is the Fifth Vital Sign
(after pulse, blood pressure, temperature, and respiratory rate);
doctors under-prescribe and nurses under-administer
.
    On a scale of one to ten, my pain was a nine a few minutes ago, but now it’s a seven. Another spasm will probably hit me in a few minutes so should I play it safe and say nine, or should I conserve my points and say six? Better to keep eight or nine for later, but what if Nurse Emma’s not around then?
    “Seven – seven and a half,” I equivocate. “The Russian judge gives it an eight.”
    She didn’t find my joke funny, so I figured I’d better stop kidding around or she wouldn’t take my pain seriously, even though humour was the only way I could endure it.
    “I’ll get you something,” she said and then disappeared behind the curtain. An hour passed. The pain came and went, but Nurse Emma didn’t. I got up to find her, and another nurse told me she’d gone on a break. “I’m having pain!” I announced loudly at the nursing station, then retreated to my cubicle. Eventually, Nurse Emma showed up.
    Her total indifference was maddening. I was embarrassed we were even in the same profession, but I decided to put her on notice. “I’m a nurse, too.”
My eyes are on you
.
    “Cool.” She prodded my arm. “Your veins are