Two Hospitals

Posted on September 3, 2007 in Body Language Psych Wards

A friend of mine was in lockup at Royale Santa Ana, so I zipped over there after my Saturday morning support group meeting to see how she was doing. There were three units on the site and it took me a few minutes of walking about in the sun to find the right one. The white paint on the building and the broad asphalt apron did not make it any easier on my uncovered head and eyes, but I finally found the door leading to where I wanted to go.

A Latina who called herself the receptionist waited behind a metal cart outside the unit door. She took my keys and Bluetooth, then ran a metal detector about the shape of the paddles they used to use on us in junior high school around my extremities. “Do you have any medications?” she repeated two or three times. Then she paged my friend to the nurse’s station before opening the door to a long, pale turquoise hall where inmates sat or stood and my friend waited for me behind a thick red line.

She introduced me, straightaway, to a guy she’d met on the ward. He was the One, she told me. The two of us then paced the floor, there being a distinct lack of chairs and private meeting space. Conversation went to how this joint compared to South Coast Medical Center and what you needed to do to get off the ward and back into society. We hugged goodbye and I rounded the building yet again, in 105 degree plus sunlight, back to my car.

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A nap, too much food, and a trip to Trader Joe’s filled most of the interval between my visit to Royale and a second to Mission Hospital. While watching a DVD, I began to feel a lacerating headache that went round my head and into my eye. More significant than this was nausea that went nowhere. Fine sweat pushed out of my pores. I checked my blood sugar — it was high, so I called the Mission Hospital ER. They suggested that I come down, so Lynn drove me, stopping once so I could entertain the dry heaves.

I spent the hours from about eleven to three being pushed about on carts beneath (I noted) three different styles of ceiling tiles. They poked me with an IV, sampled my bodily fluids, and put me through the magic donut for a CT scan. When it was all over, the doctor hazarded that it might be a migraine. They had good drugs. One tablet of Zofran ended my bout of nausea, but getting a home prescription for it proved prohibitive because many insurance companies just won’t cover the $32 pop per pill. I was told to drink lots of water and see my endocrinologist on Tuesday for further evaluation of my blood sugar and a possible referral to a neurologist.

When we came home, our neighbor — a San Bernardino city fireman — was setting out to his job. Lynn crashed on the upstairs couch while I lay me down, mostly free of the aches that had scourged me.

[tags]mental wards, hospitals, migraine, bipolar disorder[/tags]