The Shavuos That Wasnâ€™t

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Written by Hannah Reich Berman

Thursday, 16 June 2011 10:12

Part 1

Three weeks prior to the start of Shavuos, I developed what I thought was a garden-variety cold. Choosing to think of myself as a hardy soul, I fought through it. Itâ€™s been years since I last saw our thermometer, so I had no way of knowing if I had a fever, and Hubby wasnâ€™t here to help by using my motherâ€™s method, which is to place the palm of a hand on my forehead. So I used my own palmâ€”but, as I was to learn, one canâ€™t tell by using her own hand; it has to be someone elseâ€™s palm. Go know!

When two weeks passed with no discernible improvement in my condition, my daughter took me to see my doctor. I was too weak to drive. Within a few minutes, Docâ€”who, fortunately, keeps track of his thermometerâ€”informed me that I did indeed have a fever. But he didnâ€™t really need the thermometer, because one look at my face and a few taps of his stethoscope told him what he needed to know. He did what physicians everywhere do: he placed a hard, cold stethoscope disc on my back and told me to breathe deeply. By the time I got to the third deep breath, I was coughing, choking, and gasping for air. Doctors like that.

Doc made those hmmmm and ah-ha sounds that are taught in medical school and then suggested that I get blood work and a chest X-ray. Since yom tov would begin the next evening, I wanted immediate results. So I had my daughter drive me to a hospital ER. Unfortunately, I went to a hospital where my doctor doesnâ€™t have privileges, so I was on my own. Big mistake!

It was 10:00 a.m. Fifteen minutes after being seen, I was told that I needed to be admitted. My white-blood count was high; and while pneumonia didnâ€™t show on the X-ray, three of the seven doctors who did the old â€œbreathe deeply in and outâ€ routine on me were certain they heard something at the base of my right lung. Another indication for admittance was that my temperature was even higher than it had been in the doctorâ€™s office. (The emergency room staff keep track of their thermometers, too; I seem to be the only one who doesnâ€™t.)

Learning that I would be admitted made me nervous, and I instinctively looked around for Hubby, to no avail. He hadnâ€™t found a way to return to me. Meanwhile, my daughter, pale and upset, called her two sisters. The Marines donâ€™t land as fast as those other two did, and suddenly it was family conference time. I was the mother and the patient, but I wasnâ€™t invited to join the conferenceâ€”which was just as well, since, by that time, I felt too sick to speak.

So, after ten days of being alternately cared for (at my house) by my three girls, I would be a ward of the hospital. It wouldnâ€™t be much of a Shavuos, but I was too sick to think about that. â€œAt least Iâ€™ll get the care that I need,â€ I whispered, â€œand you three girls can be home with your families for yom tov.â€ I didnâ€™t count on the fact that they would immediately notify their brother who lives in Israel. Great! Now I would have four bosses instead of three. He called back several times more that day for periodic updates and to ask if he should fly in to New York. Thankfully, someone wisely reassured him that I was in good hands and would be well cared for. It wasnâ€™t necessary to have him schlep here.

After a full eight hours of hanging out in the hallways of an overcrowded and understaffed emergency room, without benefit of privacy (not even a curtain around me to hide my glorious countenance), I was at last admitted to a room. It was then 6:00 p.m. And once again I looked around for Hubby. And once again all I saw were doctors surrounding my bed. Itâ€™s amazing how many doctors there are in hospitals, I told myself jokingly. To myself I sounded like Hubby. It was something he would have said. He was indeed with me. But I missed the clue.

By that time, although I was already on intravenous antibiotics, I was feeling sicker by the minute.

I learned invaluable lessons that evening. Unless you are bleeding to death and in mortal danger, never allow yourself to be admitted to a hospital without your own doctor. And if you make the mistake of doing that, never give too much information. Without my own doctor, I was essentially everyoneâ€™s patient. And each doctor had a different idea about my case. I had ceased to be Hannah; I was officially a â€œcase.â€

The physicians, each one convinced that his idea should be investigated, scheduled tests. So when I innocently remarked that I was having a difficult time breathing, three sets of eyes lit up. I could practically hear their thinking! Ah-ha! Heart! She may have a heart problem. This has to be looked into. And, before I had a chance to explain that it was hard for me to breathe because of my chest congestion but my heart was just fine, thank you very much, someone had rolled an EKG machine into my room, despite the fact that Iâ€™d had an EKG in the ER.

Unfortunately, my latest EKG results didnâ€™t yield the same results as the one Iâ€™d had in the ER. So they did another. That also didnâ€™t look terrific, so they did a third. EKGs are a big thing in hospitals. The results of the third one looked markedly better, but they chose to ignore that and instead they ordered a cardiac workup. Another hospital lesson: Beware of the word workup! And on it went.

That first night was endless. No one listened when I said Iâ€™d had a routine echocardiogram, treadmill stress test, and nuclear stress test within the past six months. And they didnâ€™t listen when I said that all of those test results had been fine and that I did not need a cardiac workup. I longed for someone to close the light and for all of them to leave the room so I could sleep. But no one cared what I longed for! The doctors looked at me with compassion and patted my hand. One daughter was weeping, one didnâ€™t cry but looked very worried, and the third planted a phony smile on her face and said, â€œMa, youâ€™ll be fine, just let the doctors check you out.â€ I wasnâ€™t sure which made me more nervous, the weeping or the false gaiety that turns a smile into a grimace.

To be continued . . .

Hannah Berman lives in Woodmere and is a licensed real-estate broker associated with Marjorie Hausman Realty. She can be reached at Savtahannah@aol.com or 516-902-3733.