We came home and Sam cooked tomato and chorizo sausage pasta for dinner. I was in the lounge room when I heard Sam shout, “Shit!” which was followed by a crash of the saucepan on the tiled kitchen floor. Sam had spilt the boiling pot of water over his arm. He was just moving the cooked pasta from the stove to the strainer when the tea towel, he was using to hold the saucepan handle, caught on the top of the stove, tipping the saucepan over his right hand.
I told him to put his arm under the water.
What to do, this was potentially a bad burn, probably was a bad burn. I knew he should douse it with cool water. But what else?
I googled what we should do. It said that he should keep his arm under the cold water for at least half an hour.
Sam kept trying to take his arm out from under the water. “Leave it there,” I said. He kept turning the water down. I kept turning it up. “Now is not the time to be stingy with the water,” I said.
What to do?
I was also so hungry that I had to eat. I hadn't eaten since lunch time.
So while Sam had his arm under the water, I finished the dinner and filled the lunchboxes.
I called Luke and discussed it with him. He said to go to the hospital.
Sam ate his with one hand, as his other hand remained under the running water.
I ate mine, I had to eat. I was shaking, I presumed from hunger.
As soon as we’d finished eating, we left for the hospital.
“This is not the time to act like a hero,” I said. “If they think you are in pain we will get seen quicker.”
As soon as Sam took his arm out from under the water it began to hurt and he was in real pain, for real, no acting required.
We got in the car. Sam began to moan.
We parked in Gertrude Street, just at Fitzroy Street, it seemed the easiest way to go. There was a car park right there, we could be hunting for one otherwise. I probably could have got closer, but would we have been able to park? The last thing I wanted to do was drive around and around.
We ran up Fitzroy Street, the wrong way, as though being on foot made any difference to a one way street. Sam was in lots of pain by this stage.
Emergency didn't seemed too busy. The triage was vacant.
The nurse wrapped Sam’s arm in cling film. The nurse sympathised with his pain. She winced and grimaced at all the right breaks in the conversation. Then she told him to sit on the green and beige chairs.
We sat and we sat. We watched the carnival perform in front of us. Ah emergency, where the flotsam and getsom of society gather. It is the sea of life flowing into the drain of suffering.
The blond junkie train wreck with sores on her face who continually headed outside for a smoke, seemingly, physically holding her garb together. She seemed to change clothes constantly. At one point her gown parted and I’m sure her pants were open and all I saw was dark, but I looked away quickly before I focussed on, what may have been, her snatch.
There was the dark-haired young chick who was delusional who also continually headed outside for a smoke. She was painfully thin in her track pants and ugg boots, as she walked she kind of led with her neck, like something drawn by Dr Seuss.
The obese guy coughed and coughed, as he slept in the chair. His jeans bulged out with his skirt of flesh below.
The (what looked like) Muslim family sat around worrying about their son who was in some bad way beyond the emergency ward doors. I joked with Sam that he was some musso kid who had tried to blow himself up. Sam laughed between groans Their family seemed to be the drama of the night. The kids mother seemed to be really stressed. Their son may have been the reason for the police presence, but I don't know. The male members of the family, the multitude of beefy blokes, all had beards like they were the Muslim Brotherhood. Mum couldn't stop taking.
There was the happy old chick in the wheelchair in her cheap silk oriental dressing gown, pj's and wool-lined slippers who had a bad foot, who was busily writing in a notebook. She seemed very please with her writing as she'd stop occasionally, smile, kind of wave her hands slightly as she read back over what she'd written, then she'd write some more. She'd, apparently, had been waiting for hours. Her daughter turned up at some point and sat with her.
There was the old woman in a tracksuit with the huge arse, as though she had many pads down there, who could hardly walk who waited with her son to have her diabetes checked. Every time she moved she moaned. Her son tried to comfort her, but she just berated him in return. She was cranky with pain, well, she was cranky.
There was the beautiful young couple who, for some reason, got to sit on the chairs right by triage that nobody else was allowed to sit on. Every time a new nurse came on who tired to move them she would be shut down and they'd remain where they were. They were taken through quietly at varying points.
There was the Asian chick, in the leopard skin jacket and hectic orange patterned plushy pants who’d taken a pill after which she’d felt deathly cold. She insisted on being seen, as she felt she was an emergency. She was told to wait on the green and beige chairs.
There was the woman with the shopping jeep who came in to have her chest listened to, who was told she should have an ECG. When she was told to wait, she said she wasn’t staying, thank you very much. “I’ll call an ambulance, luv, if I need to,” she said. “I’ve done it many times, darl.”
“I really would like you to stay,” said the nurse.”
“No, luv, I’m going home, I have to take the medicine,” she said matter of a factly. “I’ll call an ambulance, I have many times. Thank you very much.” And with that she wheeled her shopping trolley right out of the emergency door.
There was the mental/out of it guy, it is hard to tell, who kept coming in and bothering everyone. He kept coming and going with his various bags. At one point he came in with an extinguished, but previously lit, cigarette in his mouth, which one of the nurses questioned. "That's not burning, is it?" as he stood with his back to the wall making arm movements as though he was directing traffic. Then he departed and came back not long after with it burning, which he stubbed out in a bin, as if defiantly, then he left. Security arrived after that and he wasn’t seen again.
Sam was in agony for the first hour, or so.
All the time the glass door would slide open and somebody would call out a name. Sam kept saying his name, hoping they would say it too... but they didn't.
The Muslim family came in and out two by two. The mum stopped by us and sympathised with Sam's pain, like a mum would. I liked her after that.
The trashy blond bimbo would stagger back and grunt for the door to be opened for her.
The painfully thin dark-haired junkie came back from a smoke and sat herself down at the triage desk and said she knew the answers. "I know, I know, I know!" A nurse came out pretty quickly after that and led her away.
The obese guy would suddenly have a coughing fit in his sleep. You could hear him dislodging the lung butter.
Old happy in her wheelchair, suddenly she said she couldn't wait any longer. She got up marched over to the desk, berated the woman behind the counter, turned and marched out of the place. Her middle aged daughter went after her. "Mum...."
Oh yes, and crying woman came in late on crutches. She was crying with the pain of her back, from what I could ascertain. She'd been promised a stretched by the ambulance guys, but when she'd insisted on stopping outside for a cigarette the ambulance guys had taken off with her stretcher. How could she be expected to stand? Sob. How could she be expected to wait? Sob. What was she to do? Sob. "I only wanted a smoke... ahhh!"
But, then the doors slid open once more and the nurse said, “Mr Sam?”
We were taken to a room. It was about 10pm, maybe 10.30pm. We'd been waiting 3 hours.
Sam’s wrist had blown up with huge blisters by this point under the gladwrap. His skin had turned the colour of a cooked lobster.
The nurses came back and looked at Sam’s arm. They discussed de-roofing the blisters. Cutting them off. They talked about what dressing they would use. They prepared the bandages. And they left again.
The dark-hired delusional, who led with her neck, who had one particular nurse she told her conspiracy theories to, lost the plot at different times and had to be restrained. Code greys were called.
Nurses walked passed the door, then walked back. Everything seems to be steady and slow in emergency.
And mostly we waited. We read all the manuals, clearly we were in the burns room. I opened all the cupboard doors. I sat on the seat. I sat on Sam's bed. I walked to the door and looked out at the corridors. I walked back and sat on the seat.
Around 1am the nurses came back. “The doctor will be here shortly.” The nurses were nice, they sympathised with Sam.
Sometime after that our doctor, Henry, arrived. He said he’d need to go and talk to Plastics (whatever that is) as the burn was on a joint and he didn’t want to compromise the movement in the healing.
Henry got a registrar from Plastics, (whatever that is) to advise him on what to do.
The registrar from plastics came in and de-roofed the first blister with amazing skill, cut, cut, the yellow fluid dribbled down into the kidney dish, and it was done. Then Henry did the rest a little more shakily, with not such skilled hands. Each blister, one by one. The yellow fluid gushed from each inflated balloon of skin as it deflated under the scalpels incision, dribbling down into the kidney dish below, drip, drip, drip. Sam winched and rocked in pain. I held his other hand.
When he was finished Henry wrapped Sam's wrist in silver bandage, then wrapped it in gel bandages and then covered it in gauzed and then bandaged the whole thing up.
We got a script and some pain relief. We left Emergency after 2am.
Obese guy was still asleep in the chair.
Asian chick, in the leopard skin jacket and hectic orange patterned plushy pants was still waiting, looking very miserable.
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