Today Paul woke me up to work in the office around 3p. I swore it must’ve been 10a, but I trust internet time. We talked about meta-cognition a bit, and I tried to explain the idea behind principal bundles — something I’d do again later, but with Amit. Liz is too cool for school it would appear — not long before I received a phone call from Mary. Michelle is at the hospital. No, she did not have spinal meningitis; gastroenteritis caused by E. coli or some other third world agent, sometimes also found at water parks and slaughter houses. I skipped out a few minutes early [read: five]. Luckily, new tutor Lauren was out feeding the meter when she ran into me. I told her that I was off to the hospital, she offered me a lift. I accepted.
Once I got to the ER, I merely pulled the closest person resembling medical staff aside and told her that my friend was here and that I had come to see her. She quickly looked Michelle up on the computer without further inquiry and told me to walk right in, she was in room fifteen. I politely thanked her and wandered into the deeper recesses of the hospital, all the while calculating my chances of swiping some cotton swabs or a stethoscope.
Michelle was in room fifteen, prone and neatly tucked in her bed, IV and all. But not for long, they carted her out of the room and into the hall — they were kind enough to relocate a chair for me as well — there were more patients than rooms and Michelle was not among the most pressing of cases. They populated her room with a man who only spoke Spanish. Somehow it took them more than three attendents to realize this. I was agog each time I heard a medical professional utter, “No habla espanol.” The man replied each time with a short laugh. Meanwhile, I dove into a few math books and periodically asked Michelle if her water had broken yet. I played jazz and the Stones, too. And Sesame Street’s “Put Down the Duckie” once for a small boy visited the Spanish-speaking man.
Eventually they released Michelle. But I wonder. I’m not sure even I can see my own medical files. Don’t I have to pretend to be a brother or husband or someone to visit an in-patient in the ER; can they even release the names of the in-patients? I’ll ask my doctor friends, one of whom works at this hospital, I think. But she’s in the psych ward, and her stories scare me suffiently to stay away.
On the plus, I was able to visit. And all I got in return was a cruddy mango. And dinner. From Nine Tastes. Gosh, Tom Kha is about the best thing in the world.