A nurse decides to make it her mission to find me a bed but they are all occupied still. There's one bed reserved for life threatening injuries so they move me there. My mind begins to race. Life threatened? I feel threatened, but my life doesn't. Pain level check: 4. They're finally ready for me to have an x-ray. I get moved into the hall outside the x-ray room. They tell me that I'm up next. An hour passes. A few people needed x-rays more than me so I continue to be my patient self.
Two more hours pass by. The same nurse that moved me to the x-ray hall recognizes me. "Ready to go back to your room, yet? No? They haven't seen to you?!" Five minutes later I went through the most excrutiatingly painful experience. Not only do they need me to climb onto a flat metal bed, they require me to lay perfectly flat on my back and remain motionless. I try my best, but at this point, the pain is making me convulse. Perhaps someone notices because it's time for another pain level check: 8. I'm unable to climb off the bed without aid.
One can only assume they're used to people answering their pain level questions without thinking. I compare my current level of pain to all the pains I've ever felt or possibly could feel. I haven't experienced severe burns, lacerations or gunshot wounds in my lifetime so I can only speculate that these would be more painful than what I was currently feeling.
The doctor arrives in my room to tell me that I have a compression fracture of my L3 vertebra. Watching entirely too much House, I have a fairly good idea of what the options are. "So how bad is it?" I'm told that I'll be bedridden for a few months and more follow-ups were needed. They also tell me that since I have no medical insurance, they'll be giving me the "affordable drugs". Three more ambulance rides and a suppository later, I defeat the side-effect from the oxycodone, which was extreme constipation & dehydration.
Seventeen hours in hospital. Four ambulance rides. One broken back. Zero pain killers during my visit.
A few months later, while browsing the web lying-down on my make-shift sofa-desk, I spot this article. Our group had suffered headaches off and on for several months before and after my fall. Guess who's building is full of carbon monoxide detectors now?
