Published on

Chapter 3: The Hallway

Note: I would like to pause for a few disclaimers. First, I am sharing my experience in the spirit of honest and good-humored reporting about travel moments that suck. Behind all the shiny, happy pictures, we all know that sometimes things just don’t go swimmingly, and personally I find it refreshing to read those stories too. Let me take you down the path of what it was like for me so that you can glimpse it without actually going through it. I also hope that this will be a frank example of rolling with the punches and finding perspective through pain. Secondly, and very importantly, some of my experience has been exasperating, but I do not blame the health system in Portugal, nor any of the hospitals or caretakers I have encountered. I firmly believe that the hospitals and staff in my story are of very high quality and that everyone was doing the best they could under challenging circumstances. Please don’t misconstrue my storytelling as critique.

~~~

The Santa Maria ER hallway was a glaringly lit, high-traffic combat zone. Dozens of gurneys lined the wall, each topped with a unique character and case. There were numerous elderly patients quietly sleeping under their blankets as though they had been there for days. There was Ana, a young, tattooed woman with a phone who confided plaintively to me that she wanted to go home. There was a kind-looking lady who coughed a lot. There was a giant reclining in a wheelchair, unmasked, mouth agape, snoring with wild, howler-monkey abandon. There was a worried gentleman receiving a visit from his resigned and loving wife, who furtively handed him a mason jar wrapped in a plastic bag. There was an incessant flow of time-pressed hospital staff in both directions, studiously avoiding eye contact with those of us sidelined. The soundscape was: repetitive beeps, whooshes of scrubs and gowns as they hurried by, slammed doors, muffled moans, rubber-soled foot squeaks, and the occasional piercing of this relative peace with an alarm heralding the passage of a gory code-blue patient.

I don’t speak Portuguese, and even if I did, no one was telling me anything. So I looked for clues wherever I could. I tried without success to match staff activities and demeanors with their seemingly color-coded hospital scrubs—blue, green, lavender, those with and without white coats or flowing robes. I attempted to glean evidence from staff badges as they whisked by. I inspected the plaques next to each door: a training room that seemed also to house some snacks, the orthopedic doctor’s office, a broom closet where nurses sometimes closed the door behind themselves, the x-ray room's door plastered with warnings, and an all-purpose consult room with a steady flow of patients and staff in and out.

I had many questions. I wondered when they were coming for me, where and how I could go to the bathroom, if I could get something to eat or at least some water, whether Eirik and Sasha had found their way to Isak and Silas, if I would be going home tonight, whether I could get some pain meds, and if the second x-ray had confirmed that my leg was properly set in the cast or if (as the doctor had ominously warned) they were going to arrive any moment to torture me with that process all over again. As the hours ticked by, I wondered whom I could ask, which question should take priority, and how to avoid diverting someone who was running to help a patient in direr condition than me.

Eirik materialized beside my gurney. He and the kids were together out in the lobby, but no one was allowed to visit. He had had to raise a ruckus to be allowed in alone for a brief visit. “It doesn’t seem like I’m going anywhere tonight,” I told him, “Take the kids home and get them some dinner.” Having heard that I might not be permitted any belongings, I removed all my jewelry and gave it to Eirik along with my purse. The phone though: that I was obviously keeping, even if it meant stuffing it secretly in my bra. We kissed goodbye, and there I was again alone, yet not, in the frantic world of the hallway.

The timeline is hazy, but I insinuated myself into the busy community by sheer force of will and eye contact. I tried out different words to get my requests across in my version of Portuguese (Spanish with a twist of vowels and as much sh as possible). I learned to be wheeled to the all-purpose consult room to use a bed pan (urinar!) and to give a minimum of three or four people at least one hour’s notice for this task. I asked around 10 staff in various colors of garb for some water to drink (agua!) and a way to remove my contacts (lenshes de contato!). Thankfully I found a friend in a young male nurse clad in green scrubs and a matching robe who wound the bottom of his robe around his finger so often that the corner had become frayed with what must have been a satisfying string. He managed to land me a bottle of strawberry yogurt drink (morango!) and a package of biscuits to eat (comer!). I did my best to stay off my phone in an effort to preserve battery life, as the thought of being utterly incommunicado in this place made me shudder.

Sometime near midnight, things shifted. The doctor stopped by to say that if I were his relative, he would recommend that I go to a private hospital, because he had no idea when they could treat me, but that it was too late to make a move tonight. My friend in the green robe parked me in a different location and sent for a colleague. The team of two took my blood pressure, a Covid sample, every stitch of my clothes and all my belongings. They cut my favorite jeans the rest of the way off me with scissors. They gave me a blue disposable gown, jauntily open all the way down the back. Someone placed an IV while I was on the phone with my insurance company discussing logistics. The female nurse asked earnestly if I wanted kwekush or pensush, and we went back and forth a few times—me mimicking these fun words in the hopes that this would bring clarity to my mind, her trying to not laugh while posing the question again and again. Finally she brought out the options in question: would I prefer disposable mesh or diaper panties? My former friend in green confiscated my phone and zipped it all up for safekeeping before returning me to the hallway.

I don’t know what sleeping pill they gave me, but it must have been a doozy. Despite being a lifelong insomniac, I did actually sleep on the gurney in that bright, cacophonous hallway—all the while worrying about Ana who had taken a groaning turn for the worse, wondering if Eirik would ever find me again, and trying to ignore my jumbled up bones screaming at me from inside the leaden cast.