Other reflections from five days on my back: Almost half of the patients around me in the ER seemed to be suffering from moribund obesity. Diabetes is a California epidemic. Latest reports suggest that well over 40% of Hispanics, to take one especially at-risk group, admitted to the hospital for all causes are diagnosed with it,
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Again, I feel very fortunate. The ER personnel offered tales of lesser bike falls where the victims ended up paralyzed, or with cranial bleeding — or dead.
But when you are lying flat and cannot read or talk or eat, your mind wanders into retrospection and memoriae temporis acti — dreaming of the sort that one must be careful about, lest it devolves into the depression of should have, could have, would have done this or that.
I offer a general thought from the ER and subsequent last five days: we live in a weird postmodern/premodern world. Never have Americans been so blessed and never so ungracious.
The ER trauma center was postmodern: even a plastic surgeon was on duty, who did wonders with my hanging lip and crushed nose. The triage team was top-notch. The equipment, nursing staff, and regimen were stellar. Without them I would be infected, disfigured, and bedridden. (Though I may hold off entirely on that optimism until May 30th, when I am back and the gambit of not canceling has been proven wise. How do you tell your guests that you were stupid enough to endanger their entire trip?)
For five hours, I watched the worst imaginable cases wheeled in — the wages of burns, wrecks, shootings, stabbings, falls, drug overdoses, heart attacks, shock, etc. — all met with an upbeat, can-do staff professionalism.
The clientele, however — metal detector required for entrance — was premodern. Many were foreign nationals. Some appeared to be gang-bangers. Police were ubiquitous (not all the injured were virtuous or harmed by accident). English was rarely spoken by the patients. It was a world away from the ER crowd of rural California circa 1960.
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