Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Another Notch In The ER Cot

I know there is a "mile-high" club for airplane travelers who are, to say the least, adventurous and daring. But is there a club I don't know about that involves an ER treatment room and the flimsy cot in it?

The other day, during another busy shift, I walked into Room 31, ready to treat a new patient. What I walked into, however, caught me off-guard. In fact, I think I blushed. And after everything I've seen and treated in the ER over these past years, to get me to blush is a major accomplishment.

Lying in the cot, covered by a thin papery sheet, was a very "loving", shall we say, young couple. They were in the midst of some passionate maneuvering--four tangled arms wrapped around one another, shirts rumpled and pulled up, shoes kicked off to the side of the cot, and mussed up hair. My timing couldn't have been better. Lucky me. A front row ticket to an amateur peep show.

Maybe in my twenties, I would have been more enamoured about this situation but, to be honest, I'm in my early forties now--the only thing I felt was a little frustration. And, guessing from my warm cheeks, embarrassment. Well, some wonderment too--who in their right mind looks around an emergency treatment room and gets "in the mood?" Is it the gowns? At least this explained why the room curtain and sliding door were closed.

I cleared my throat and skipped my usual greeting. 'What's going on in here?" I asked, trying to sound like my father, stern and all-knowing.

Surprised, the girl sat up. "Oh my gosh," she giggled, hardly embarrassed, "we got a little bored after waiting for so long to be seen."

"I'll tell you what. I'm going to step out of this room for one minute, and when I come back in, I expect you to both be presentable. If not, you will both be escorted out of the ER by security. Do I make myself clear?"

They both nodded their heads at me, the middle-aged doctor who interrupted their cheap thrills.

I walked back to the nurses' station shaking my head. I wasn't buying the bored routine. Each patient room has its own television, complete with a remote control and more cable channels than I get at home. Each room also has a filled magazine rack and its own telephone for local calls. We even have available wireless internet if someone is so inclined to bring in their laptop with them. Outside of a pillow, a warm blanket, and a two-day old turkey sandwich with fresh lemon jello, what more could a waiting patient want?

Obviously, some privacy. And some form of birth-control.

I found the nurse for Room 31 and after making her aware that our patient had just been actively trying to get pregnant in our ER, we both walked back to the room together. Maybe, we joked, they would name the baby after one of us.

The curtain and sliding doors were both open. We walked into the room. The twentyish male companion was sitting meekly in the corner chair, the patient in the treatment cot. They were both dressed.

This time, I introduced myself and their nurse. "So," I said, after introductions, "which one of you might be the patient? Because from what I walked in on earlier, I would think that neither of you is sick enough to visit us in our ER."

After some putzing around, we got to the reason. The patient, it turns out, had missed her period and came to our ER for a pregnancy test. Yes, I am being serious. She got sent to the ER's acute-care side instead of our express wing after telling the triage nurse she had abdominal pain, thinking it would get her seen faster when, in fact, it tripled her wait time. The triage nurse, trying to move things along, had ordered the pregnancy test and some basic blood work.

There must be a higher power--her pregnancy test was negative.

This whole scenario, though, got me thinking that maybe there was some club I wasn't aware of, a club that nobody filled me in about since they know I work in the ER. This isn't the first time I've caught a couple fooling around in a cot. It's happened before and I would be disillusioned to think it wouldn't happen again. The common denominator, though, seems to be that they are all younger people, ranging from their late teens into their twenties.

I guess that rules my wife and I out. Initially, after catching this last couple, I had started making plans to take my wife to our ER to spend the night and find out what we were missing. And I was going to splurge, yessirree. No regular treatment room for my honey. I was going to get us one of those big trauma rooms with the really sturdy cot. Warm blankets. Cable TV. Pack our own sandwiches and pillows. Get a baby-sitter for the kids. All I had to do was register one of us, embellish some medical symptoms, give our insurance information, and the room would be ours.

"Hey honey," I would have said, "pack up your suitcase and jump in the car. I'm taking you on an overnight excursion. You don't need to pack a nightgown, either. Where we're going, they have plenty of them." If those prospects didn't intrigue her, what would? "Oh yeah," I'd add, "don't forget our insurance cards!"

In the midst of all this planning, though, it hit me--I probably wouldn't get a good night's sleep in the ER sharing a trauma cot with my wife. And, as I think I mentioned, I am in my early forties now. I held both my hands out and weighed the situation. A good night's sleep at home versus joining some obscure "notch in the ER cot" club. I yawned as I thought about it and with my yawn, the answer came quite easily.

So, this brings me back to my original question. Is there an ER club similar to the "mile-high" club that I don't know about? Do I really want to know? And does it have a nickname? I do like "notch in the ER cot" but I made that up on the fly--I would hope the name would be something better and more original than that.

Finally, if any of you are members to either club, keep it to yourself. I don't want to know. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get a good night's sleep.

As always, thanks for reading...next post will be Friday, January 8th. Let me know if you think of any good nicknames...

17 comments:

AtYourCervix said...

I'm no prude, but ANY kind of sex in the hospital just sends shivers down my spine (not the good shivers either).

One of our med students found a couple getting busy in one of the labor rooms a few months back.

When I was a patient on postpartum (years ago, with a semi-private room), my roommate, who had just given birth (like me!) was going at it with her boyfriend in the other bed, behind the curtain. EW!!!

Peter said...

Hi! This one just cracked me up! Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined anyone getting up to hanky panky in ER. I can only put it down to the porn like lighting!

Take Care,
Peter

DreamingTree said...

Creepy. Just plain creepy.

terri c said...

Well, and the worst is, she's now going to need another pregnancy test.

Anonymous said...

Just *hilarious*!

After 10 years at a Level 1 Trauma Center, I can relate :-0

Perhaps it's all just too.much.Grey's.Anatomy.watching.

Sheesh!

SeaSpray said...

"Is it the gowns? " hahahahahaha! Oh yeah ..especially if an inpatient and you get those gowns with the old fashioned boxer shorts print... you have to fend people off I tell you! ;)

I Love it ..taking your wife out for an overnight excursion to join the club. It's not complete though unless one of the staff walks in. is there anyone you don't like? Choose that night shift. :)

You know ..doctors and other med staff do this too. Maybe not in ER ..but if slow and no one around ..I'll bet it's happened.

I heard about a doc and a nurse caught going at it on a stretcher in the nursery.(night shift) Lost privileges and nurse fired.

And I've known about the ED doc's call room being a revolving door for "guests".

Gray's Anatomy isn't that far from reality with the sex in the hospital. I don't know about now with all the security cameras... but before that...

Maybe it's hormones, the thrill of maybe getting caught upping the excitement , bad manners and stupidity.

I laughed out loud with this post. Thanks for the laughs. :)

Cal said...

Like you, I think age makes me appreciate a little comfort more so these days, and a hospital cot is definitely low on the comfort scale, particularly when you would be trying to fit two people canoodling on it. The only benefit would be once you had fallen off the cot and split your forehead open you would already be on the right spot for treatment.

Anonymous said...

It's kind of hot, I think. LOL. I wasn't supposed to say that, right?

Nicknames, for what?

MLee said...

Too funny!!! I do believe there is an ER mile high club. When we closed our ER to open the new one, I found one of our cardiac fliers behind the curtain getting his $5.00 worth from one of our PID fliers. The only reason i found them was because he was hooked to a cardiac monitor and was just a little tachy. I said screw it, (no pun intended), left them to their business arrangement. About 10 minutes later they signed out AMA.

911RN said...

Funny stuff....have seen some steamy, preamble, foreplay in our ER but no outright sex. Our wait times must be shorter!

How about Cot Notchers Club or Stretcher Knockers Club ?

Ahh, those twenty somethings...did not even have to "get a room"- one was provided by their local, accomodating ER!

ERP said...

LOL

Anonymous said...

Perhaps you could sign up the Radiologists and start an "MRI Scanner Club". There might be a publication in that one.

Dr Grumble said...

The MRI studies have been done already:

http://psychology.stanford.edu/~knutson/ans/faix02.pdf

Grumpy Old Ken said...

Brilliant! Makes my life seem so very dull. Like your comment 'I am a writer'. I wonder what happens to our blogs when we're gone. Mind you, you're too young to go yet!

Maha said...

All you have to say in a very concerned voice is "Oh crap! The last patient had infectious bloody diarrhea in this cot and infection control told us it wasn't cleaned thoroughly".

And I think there's a hospital wide variation of the mile high club. I found a couple on a tele floor in the midst of... well... we all know!

Hey, You said...

Club Med?

Code Blue Club?

Or if you don't worry that people will take it the wrong way: ED Club?

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