Miraculously I Live To Tell My Story – Part 3

…still at the Critical Bay

One of the Staff yells, “Two came in. One survived. One died”. Those who heard him say that, enjoined with a burst of laughter.

As I lay still, I thought to myself if I would eventually leave this world, the same way Michael Jackson did with this bunch of loonies at the Critical Bay.

The Nurse seated at the desk, looked across the floor and spoke to me from a distance of approximately 20 feet, “Uncle, where are you from?”. I mistook it as part of the series of tests they were conducting on me and this one was for my hearing.

Now why would she want to ask that when all my particulars from my Personal ID Card had been entered into my Medical file that was on her desk?

An hour later, the same Nurse hollers a reminder that someone should transfer me to the Intensive Care Unit on the first floor at Block D.

A while later, a young Hospital Attendant walks over to my side, holds my Medical file, looks at me and smiles. Leaves the file at the foot of my bed and walks away. Great! I guess his job wasn’t to transfer me to ICU but only to leave my Medical file on my bed. I never saw him again. Hmmm! who is it that claims that unemployment is severe in the country?

Repeated reminders continued to ring out: “Hey! this Uncle has been accepted at ICU Block D. Get him moved to ICU”.

The transfer to the ICU only happened more than 2 hours later either because I could not get out of bed, walk over there by myself or because I refused to expire at the Critical Bay and give credence that no one makes it out alive from CB!

Okay, so much for the Critical Bay.

To the ICU Room

I was transferred on this mobile bed into an elevator. Then we came out from the elevator. And the attendant spoke to the other guy, “Hey! we are out on the same floor”.

So I am moved back into the elevator once again and this time they stop talking to each other so that they could concentrate on the button panel to make sure we get off on the ICU floor.

The ICU Room

I reached the ICU Room at close to 11 pm. It was cold. The ICU room has no room temperature control for their air conditioning. It was just a matter of whether the patient would die from the cold if his illness does not take him home earlier.

The Nurse on Duty was a very young and pleasant woman by the name of Halifah. I learned that she alone had to take charge of 15 patients on this side of the room.

I hardly slept through that first night at ICU. I could not move out of my bed as I had electrode probes attached to my chest. Several more ECG readings were taken during that night. My blood pressure was at 144/102 with a pulse rate of 98.

As I looked across my bed, I was met with unsympathetic stares from those who slept at the other side of the room.

I was given a set of ICU Heart patient’s clothes to wear. With my left hand totally disabled by the intravenous feed attachment and my chest full of probe wires, I had to turn into the One Armed Swordsman on a bouncy bed mattress in order to change from my T Shirt and Long pants into the apparel that I was handed – without Nurse Halifah’s help.

(next: more about my Diagnostics at ICU)