Without further delay…, here's the story submitted to me today by email...
“I am 49 years old, a diabetic, and I am having tightness in my chest”… Apparently, these are magic words that get you a Fast Pass ticket to a bed in a telemetry unit at a hospital.
Let me back up a bit…One day I started experiencing chest tightness and it concerned me enough I wanted to see a doctor. I knew it would take a miracle to get an appointment with my primary care physician so I drove myself to the emergency room. Those magic words above left my mouth and I was then on a Disney like ride with no chance of stepping out of line. I found myself on my back, on a gurney, in an ED bay with electrodes attached from me to a machine. Many EKG’s and blood tests later, I was told, “it doesn’t appear to be a problem with your heart…BUT…you need a nuclear stress test.” OK…doesn’t sound so bad. So far, I have only spent 2 hours of my life in the ED and they want to do one more test and I am home free. I was a bit surprised when a registration representative came in to get my information for the admission process. “I’m confused. I thought it was just one more test and I am going home.” She assured me the admission paperwork was a formality and the test would likely not need me to stay. Then they came to take me to my room. “I would like to see the doctor please. I am NOT staying overnight.” The doctor comes in my ED bay and explains that I am welcome to go home and I could drop dead in the parking lot if I wanted but it would be against his advice. I challenged his use of defensive medicine (see I do listen to the conversations at work) and said I would gladly come back in the morning on an outpatient basis. He became a little more forceful with me at that point and applied his “doctor-ness” in my direction at which point I conceded that my lack of training combined with my fear of dying would allow me to be wheeled to a room in a cardiology unit. I have to admit, the nurses were all incredible to me during my stay. They did, however, have to provide me the news, “they never do nuclear stress tests in the afternoon. Those are always scheduled in the mornings.” So, there I was at 3pm in the afternoon, feeling fine (not really), waiting for a test to occur sometime in the morning. In the meantime, what do I do? Live in the “white space”, I think...
To me “white space” is the time between useful tests, procedures and conversations where you wait. Now don’t get me wrong, some whitespace is OK…like for healing to occur, but when you are strictly waiting on a test, the time between 3pm and 8am the following day is…whitespace. I had a fitful night of sleep because of a bad bed and being awakened every 3 hours to take my vitals. I even had a brief episode of a racing heart which turned out to be related to the Nitro paste they apply to all patients complaining of heart issues. Paste gone…problem solved…back to sleep…for a few hours.
I was awakened finally at 7am to be informed my nuclear stress test would be at 8 am. Yay! Get me there and let me go home. At 8am I am transported (by a nurse I might add) to the area for my test. I was hooked to equipment, got on a treadmill, fed a nice breakfast, and then taken back to my room with assurances the results all looked normal but a cardiologist would need to do an official review. At 10am I am back in my room waiting for discharge. The cardiologist review would take a whopping 15 minutes (I was told), and I would be discharged. At 11, I asked my nurse about the results. No word yet.. “white space”. Should be anytime. More bad TV. At noon, I asked about the results. No word yet…”white space”. More bad hospital food. I asked again at 1, 2, and 3 (white space, white space, white space). To make the saga go quicker, at 5:30pm I was told the cardiologist reviewed the results and I was fine. A doctor came in and told me I should follow up with my regular doctor and have a physical. I was to be discharged. I was finally in my car and heading home at 6:30pm.
I am glad to report that I am fine. I haven’t had another episode and all appears to be normal. I may never know what medically occurred but I do know from about 1pm on one day to about 6:30pm the next, I lived in the “white space”. That represents about 29 ½ hours of my life of which there were roughly 4 hours of time spent being tested. 25 ½ hours of “white space”. I won’t go into the bill I received, the cost of medical care in our country, or the pros or cons of healthcare reform, but what I will say is…it is not fun, productive, or entertaining when you’re “Livin’ in the White Space”.
