I Couldn't Think Outside Of The Walls Of The ER

It was 11 a.m. when we checked in. The Emergency Room (ER) was full of tired, in-pain and sad faces. In the corner I noticed a man. He was just climbing out of a sleeping bag like he had just woken up from a long night's sleep. 

That was my first sign, but I didn't recognize it at the time; until 3 days later.

I entered the ER with high hopes. I thought my husband would be seen fairly soon because he was in a wheelchair with a broken leg. He had flown home from Colorado the night before where his motorcycle fell on his leg. In his hand he was holding a copy of his x-ray from the Colorado ER that made everybody who looked at it grimace. I knew that was a sign of a serious injury, yet again, I missed it as my second sign.

Soon my high hopes turned into something else. Something I could only explain after those hours in the ER, and hours more in the hospital.

Have you ever heard paramedics or first responders tell the injured at the scene of an accident to not move? It’s because there is a high chance they might get injured more if they move. The high levels of adrenaline in their bloodstreams are masking the pain in their bodies and the injured feel “fine”. Even though they could have broken bones, serious injuries, yet, they could feel no pain at all.

That's what happened to me in the ER. My mind switched from a calmed mind to an active mind and my parasympathetic nervous system shut down for hours. I did not feel pain from standing in one spot, I did not feel hungry or thirsty, nor did I feel the need to use the restroom. All those needs were turned off. My body was in a “fight or flight” response using up every ounce of my energy to focus only on the moment. I was not able to relax or rest, nor to decrease my heart rate. Yet, if you would have asked me how I felt, I would have answered you “I am fine.”

This is the same active mind that tells us being busy, going hundred miles per hour, multitasking, thinking of ten things at once, managing a big workload, doing two people’s job, or being in meetings all day without a break is all “fine”.

What was “fine” for me and what my active mind was ensuring me of was that I felt trapped within the walls of the ER. When I say active mind, I mean a mind full of thoughts yet with thoughts that kept me alert, on the edge and stuck in the ER’s waiting room for hours. I was fine with giving up control and waiting for the ER nurses to call my husband's name. I was fine waiting for hours, patiently waiting and being okay waiting. Yet, if you know me, you also know that this kind of a waiting is not what I usually do. But this time, my mind took over and I had a false sense of control over the situation.

My thoughts were statements and questions about the people around me, however I had no thoughts about my own choices and situation. If you have never been to Seattle Hospital's ER, I would describe it as a different world. As soon as I stepped inside, it felt like I stepped right into one of those TV shows that dealt with the personal and professional crises of the doctors and patients in the ER. Like Chicago Med, Grey’s Anatomy, New Amsterdam and many more. It must be a popular topic in 2022 because I counted ten ER shows that are running right now.

There was always something happening in the ER’s waiting room. A new person entered through the doors, got in the line to check in and looked around. She had the same astonished face as I had when I entered. Another new person got checked in and was looking for a place to stand or sit as he was told to wait, just like all of us in the waiting room. There was a woman going to the restroom every 20 minutes and throwing up. There was a man in the corner chair asleep and snoring loudly. There was a young man with a basketball under his arm who would be quiet then yell out really loud like he was talking to another person. Then, out loud, he would tell this voice to be quiet and then he would apologize to everyone in the waiting room for his behavior. The same young man would say a loud ‘Hi’ to everyone who entered the waiting room - to medical staff members, to police officers, to security guards - and he would say a loud ‘Goodbye’ to everyone leaving the room. There was a woman who talked really loud on her phone and almost started a fight with the man in the corner. Tension was palpable in the air and my attention was on high alert.

All what I was thinking about was related to how to keep my husband safe and protected. That's it. I was not able to think broader, to go to the balcony (William Ury’s concept in his book Getting To Yes), to see the big picture or to be objective. My thinking was confined to those walls and before that to the car I had driven to get my husband there.

I am a little ashamed to admit I was not thinking about how I could better help him. My active mind was only focused on helping him and not allowing me to access my wisdom, my ability to see other perspectives. My mind was not geared to peak performance despite the high pressure I was in. My thinking was not orderly nor stable. Only a calmed mind can get in touch with what is happening around it and experience the richness of life.

It is very strange to reflect on this because on the surface I could judge myself for not doing enough, for not being enough while all that time I was thinking “I was helping him just fine”. Yet, below the surface, the deep understanding for me is the awareness and knowledge of why I was not able to think my way out of this active mind of mine.

I was not questioning the current status quo; I was not looking for signs to spot other options or possibilities.

I was not able to ask: what if? what else? what am I missing? what could also be true? what would someone else do in this situation? what does my husband need right now and how can I help him? and how can I help him get what he needs right now in a different way? what other ways are there? who else could I ask who would know something I don't know right now? how does the ER work? what is their system? what in the system is not working for us? what's broken? how else can my husband be seen by a doctor?

A calmed mind has time and space to reflect, to question, to see the missing pieces, and to find connections and insights. It focuses on the desired want and directs all attention to solving for obstacles.

None of that happened to me.

I was experiencing a state of mind - the overactive mind - I had never experienced before.

I had never been to the ER waiting room before. My husband had not broken his leg before.

I remember a few times wanting to walk out of the ER to get some fresh air. I could see through the window the sun that was shining bright outside. But I told myself I couldn't do that. My responsibility was to be with my husband, and I could not leave him there by himself nor could I have wheeled him outside with me. This was another sign of me not having control over my actions that I was blind to. The feeling of duty, accountability, and respect kept me waiting and literally doing nothing for hours.

Interestingly, as I was standing there, the minutes felt like days or weeks, and the hours we spent in the ER felt like years. Reflecting back now, time seemed irrelevant because I had accepted it to not have a meaningful value. Time was out of my control. Waiting was all I could do.

Again, just writing this down makes no sense to me right now, to my calm mind.

How can time be irrelevant when someone is injured? Ask any medical professional and they would tell you it's the opposite.

Life or death is a matter of time when someone is injured. Waiting can put one closer to dying.

But I couldn't see that. My mind ensured me we were doing (waiting for hours without knowing when we would be called or helped) “the” best and only choice we could have done.

No doubts. Full confidence.

“Indeed, all of life comes to us in narrative form; it’s a story we tell.”

The Art Of Possibility by Rosamund Stone and Benjamin Zander

I perceived only the sensations I was programmed to receive, and my awareness was further restricted by the fact that I recognized only those for which I had mental maps already in my mind. I, like many humans, saw the map of the world (confined to the walls of the ER), not the world itself. Because no matter how objective I tried to be, it was still through the structure of my brain that I perceived the world. My mind constructed a story. And when my story was rolling, how is one to know if it is actually connected with the world itself?

After almost five hours of waiting, we were allowed to enter into the ER.

What we found inside was more of that TV like ‘different world’. Being on the other side of the ER doors did not change the intensity and tension levels from what we were experiencing in the waiting room. It actually increased them.

Over the next 48 hours I continued to have an active mind. Eventually, my husband got moved from the ER to the basement of the Hospital and into surgery. He got successfully operated on for over four hours and was able to return home safely. His recovery continues today as he regains his muscle mass and strength to learn to live with a once broken, now repaired leg.

We both experienced a lot in those 48 hours, but what will stay with me for the rest of my life, are two moments. One became one of my best moments in my life, and the second one became one of the worst moments in my life.

Six days after the surgery, we had our first of many doctor’s appointments. By then our lives had changed dramatically. My husband couldn’t walk, stand, or drive. I became his fulltime caregiver. This wasn’t a skill I have had to learn yet. But to my surprise, I became pretty good at it.  As I say “We don’t know what we don’t know – until we try.”

As we were taken into a room filled with hospital beds and pointed to a bed, a man with a boy in a wheelchair, in his teens, made their way to the bed across from us. Soon after that a doctor or doctor in residency showed up and sat down next to their bed. Meanwhile our nurse technician was taking my husband’s vitals and doing the routine check-in steps.

Shorty after the doctor arrived and asked a few questions, we computed that they were son and father. The son had broken his leg while doing athletics and he needed surgery. Interestingly, a similar surgery as my husband just had. At some point my husband and I looked at each other. No words, just a look.

The calm voice the doctor was talking with and the details he presented to that young man… were totally a surprise to us.

We were searching for those answers for the past 6 days and could not find them with such details.

And there we were, in that medical room hearing everything we were wondering about for days.

It turned out my active mind was literally keeping me from finding out that on the other side of the ER, walking distance from it, wheelchair accessible, there was the Orthopaedic Trauma Surgery Clinic.

“You could have come here instead of going through the ER. I heard the ER is pretty slammed.” Said the doctor who now sat down next to my husband’s bed and heard what we had been through the past days.

“Yes,” I answered, “we could have.”

But that was not true. The truth was I could have not come there because I had no awareness of the clinic even existing. I didn’t know about it and I didn’t look for it while in the ER. And I think this happens to most of us when our active mind takes over control while “telling” us everything is “fine.”

Everything turned out fine, eventually. Though sometimes I wonder what if…? And then I stop. I calm my mind and take a breath.

The months after the surgery were amazing. My husband and I got blessed with time together, with time to heal, time to give care, and most importantly with time to reflect. Our relationship grew closer together, just like his bone was, because we both learned so much from sharing our reflections with each other.

This shared experience in the ER and in the Hospital has showed us where our strengths were. Individually and as a couple. And we discovered new ways to help each other move from an active mind to a calmed mind. We also discovered that having a calmed mind, even when pain was present, gave us both the gift of sleeping better. That alone was a valuable discovery because sharing a bed with someone in pain was taking a toll on my sleeping health as well.

Today, I am proud to say I know how to think within and outside the walls of the ER, not just outside the box.