The Hallway Beside Room 13

Emily from the nursing station at Safe Harbour tries to reach me, but my mobile is at home. When I get home there is a message from my sister. She has picked up the second call, and called my brother who is now preparing to meet the ambulance at the Emergency wing of Admiralty General. Mum, 92, has been sent in with what might be a blocked bowel.

I call my brother who is readying the yard for the first real post covid neighbourhood bash. I tell him I am home and will go - he can stay and continue on his party prep. He sounds thankful and asks me to call him as soon as I know anything.

I drive the 45 minutes to the hospital listening to classical piano music on CBC - a rarity for me, I was hoping for one of the comedy battles, but actually the music is pleasant and calming and I don’t worry so much about the pains in my back and neck - where I always feel my stress. They say heart attacks can present as back pain. Hmm.

I park in the wrong lot, get my mobile which is inconveniently low on battery, and run 2.5 blocks from the natal wing to emergency. As I wait for the receptionist to check with the nurses in the bay, another intake person yells out “Does anyone have trouble breathing? ……Does anyone have chest pain? (I almost raise my hand but think that would be out of order as a visitor) Is anyone having a stroke ?” No takers. Back to first come, first served. It is a basic approach to prioritization, but everyone in the waiting room seems to accept it, and it seems strangely efficient. The receptionist returns and tells me to go straight down the hall to room 13.

I. actually find mum in the hallway outside room 13. She is on a gurney tucked under a heap of blankets and looks very old and very small - older and smaller than her usual old and small self. Her eyes are closed, but they open with a fearful look when I touch her shoulder and say “ Mum it’s me, Marnie ”. ‘ Marnie ?” ‘’yes mum”. I pull down my blue mask quickly and smile before putting it back in place. She smiles. She doesn’t usually remember I am her daughter, and in fact always seems completely surprised at that fact, and usually says defensively that nobody told her she has 3 children. I am used to that now. Once I say my name, though, she relaxes. She knows my name and she is happy when I am with her.

Our 10 hours in emergency in the hallway outside room 13 begins. I remind my mum a few times where we are and why we are there. But thankfully she has no pain and keeps thinking that I am the one who needs help. I assure her more than once that I am fine. I encourage her to sleep. When she opens her eyes and looks at me, we recite a few poems and songs that I know she has tucked away. “I wandered lonely as a cloud” she recites pretty much in full. Then she comes up with a new one I haven’t heard before “ the days go by quickly as a wink, enjoy yourself it’s later than you think”. Quite on the mark I think, maybe the dementia comes with buried wisdom. Turns out when I check later that the buried wisdom comes from Guy Lombardo.

During the many hours it takes to have a manual exam, blood tests, an X-ray and a CT scan, we huddle ( well I mostly stand and mum huddles on her gurney) in the hall outside room 13. There are a few steady sounds - bells and beeps that are watched carefully by the people in teal coloured scrubs and one man in Bergundy. I have ascertained by watching that teal is for nurses, burgundy for doctors, blue for surgeons and colourful patterns for admin. Black is for the cleaner. Seems a bit somber, but I guess it doesn’t show the dirt. Again quite a simple system, very efficient, easy to see. I feel like I am watching the characters in a medical drama. Paramedics stopping to chat with nurses, doctors impossibly young taking on the all sorts of an emergency wing. A few moans. A few clicks and whooshes as sliding doors separate those in trauma and those in rooms from those of us in the hallway.

We in the hallway are close neighbours. One over on the left is an elderly man who has fallen while dizzy and is now being assed. Two over is a middle aged man that comes and goes with help of a walker and smiles and tells me he is the senior in the hall - when I look confused he says he has been there the longest -3 days. I look concerned at a backpack and some magazines at his bed in the hall outside room 11, and he assures me they are on top of his situation. I become the slipper helper for a very elderly lady in the hall kitty corner to us beside the trauma bay doors. She is on watch after a fall. I conclude she must live alone as a short visit by one neighbour is the extent of her company. She doesn’t actually have a room number by her bit of hallway, just “beside the Trauma Bay doors”. I feel thankful we are beside what I now think of as lucky room 13. Mum (with a bit of coaching) and I cross our fingers for more luck just in case. The trauma bay door neighbour makes her own way very slowly to and from the bathroom on about a 45 minute cycle - I get her slippers out from behind the head of her gurney and place them on the floor when I see the preparation for the journey starting, and she thanks me for my help. She always looks over at mum and I on her way back, pauses and smiles. I assure her we are fine, and help put her slippers back in their place. One time she says I am a good daughter. “ she is a good mother” I say. She smiles and says “Yes I can see that”.

On completion of yet another clean of room 13, I say to the very pale, thin, tattooed boy in the black scrubs “ That room is keeping you busy, you are doing a great job getting every inch clean”. He looks at me standing by mum in about my fifth hour, and says” yes this is the fourth time on this room so far.” He smiles, and moves his cart along to the next re-clean. He seems content with his role and happy to be noticed. He jokes with a few other cleaners along his route. Around this time I am offered a chair by a man in teal scrubs. I have to be on my game with the chair as the gurneys don’t all fit through the sliver of real estate between us and room 13, but I am alert and quickly learn how to move myself and the chair as people roll by.

Through the early evening I move the car, feed the meter, try to get my family messages out on the dying phone, and watch the mosaic of quickly moving teal, burgundy and blue. The boy in black makes an appearance now and then. Shifts change. I get to know the new characters, those with patience, those without much, some quiet tappers of keyboards, some rallying a chuckle with a story. Slippers come out and go back as the Trauma Bay door lady keeps up her routine. The senior resident of the halls passes us again on his walker. Room 13 now houses an elderly man who fell in his chicken house. Shoulder injury. A few hours pass, there is a discharge, and room 13 is cleaned again.

The blue clad surgeon finally arrives at hour 10 to feel mums belly. He looks very young, and has hurried down from taking care of what no doubt was a more urgent matter. He is apologetic about our wait. He informs us that mum will be discharged because while it is possible there is a kink, it appears to him from the test results that mum is actually ok, just in need of more aggressive bathroom management back at Safe Harbour. No need to consider surgery or the weighty decision of not doing surgery. That dilemma is for another day.

As Phil, the long haired Medi-Van driver gets ready to whisk mum back to her regular Safe Harbour, I thank the young surgeon and the latest shift of nurses and say goodbye to our neighbour beside the Trauma Bay doors. I am no longer stressed. I am thankful. For the people, and the sounds, and the colour, and the care in our small bit of hallway, beside room 13.