The Night I Almost Died In The ER

On January 25, 2021, at 1:30 am, I wake up very suddenly with a sharp searing pain in my groin. My wife is already out of bed, rocking our newborn baby, and immedietely she asks me what;s wrong. I can't explain the pain, and for some reason, breaking all our habits, she tells me to call 811, the non-emergency line that connects you with a nurse right away. I explain my symptoms over the phone - a sudden pain in my groin - and am instructed to get to an Emergency Room immediately, and to not drive myself there. Luckily, my sister-in-law has been staying with us to help with the baby, and so she is able to drove me to the closest hospital. Just two months ago, on November 21, 2020, I had made the same drive, in the middle of the night, with my wife having contractions. That morning, we had the pleasure of welcoming our baby girl to the world, surrounded by the most amazing healthcare professionals, who you may remember, we've called our literal angels on earth.

On this night though, as my sister-in-law races to the hospital, my pain increases from a 5 to an 8 out of 10, and it is so nauseating that I have now lost feeling in my hands and feet. By the time we pull up to the Emergency Room driveway, in the blistering cold, my sister-in-law pulls me out of the car legs first and gets me into a wheelchair to roll me into the hospital. With no feeling in my hands, my Gucci pouch with my wallet and my phone charger in it is left in the back of the car. My phone, of course, is at 13%. And I have no idea what is happening.

With my pain now going to a 9 out of 10, I have an uncontrollable urge to urinate and to vomit at the same time. I still have no feeling in my hands or feet. I am literally begging for anyone to help me at this point, and I throw myself out of the wheelchair unto the floor to look for a garbage can to vomit into. Peace Officers rush to me and push me back into the chair, and a very annoyed ER nurse (remember her from this point on, we will call her Nurse A) pushes me back into the chair. She repeatedly asks for my Health Card - I don't have it with me, its in my car. "Can my sister-in-law grab it for you?" I ask in between laboured breaths. With three eye rolls, she goes behind me to push the wheelchair, first purposely into a wall to startle me, and then wheels me into a dark room in the corner of triage, and leaves. Its 2:45 am.

My wife is calling me, and I can't answer because I still can't feel my hands. It's my first time ever in my life being in an Emergency Room, and I have no idea what to expect or who to expect. Nurse A from before of course did not say anything to me, did not explain, just rolled me into the dark room and turned around and left. Someone comes in to change me out of my clothes, and I assume its the nurse who will be helping me. How wrong I was - its a health care aid who does help me in answering the phone, but otherwise leaves. I am so confused. Why am I being left alone in a dark room? Where is my wristband? Does anyone know I'm here? What are they telling Monika? What is happening to me? Where is Nurse A?

The ER is not busy at all, I can hear the ER nurses chatting about COVID affecting their all-inclsuive travel plans. They're discussing lunch menu items. Talking about shifts. But me, in nausiating pain, I am being ignored. I am calling out for help. I am begging for help. It is ignored. I am trying to make eye contact with Nurse A who keeps walking by. I am confused. What did I do wrong here? I listened to the 811 nurse and just immedietely came to the ER. I don't know why I am in this much pain. Its coming from my groin. I keep crawling to the bathroom and urinating. Surely, they must see me when I go there? I lie on the floor in the ER bathroom in intense pain, why is no one wondering what is happening to me?

I am laying in a dark room, on the bed, using my leg to keep the door banging the door open. I am cyring out for help. I feel like this is it then. I am in an alternate universe where I have been brought here and left alone. I haven't been documented because I didn't bring my health card. I have no wrist band. My phone is at 7%. I haven't talked to my wife. They say your life flashes before your eyes, but for me, there was just one very still and constant thing: my wife. I could see her face, and I imagined her life without me in it. I imagined her moving to Bali and bringing our newborn daughther there without me, living in a hut by the ocean. I imagined all the tears she would cry to moan my loss. I lay there, in an open hospital gown, in the dark, banging my leg against the door to keep it open and keep trying for attention, imagining what should wear to my funeral. I know that this is the night I will die. And I can't believe that nobody is around to help me, in a hospital, in the middle of the night. In a country I have called home for 23 years.

Two hours of this: no update, no check in, no timeline, no nothing. Just constantly being ignored as Nurse A, who is assigned to my care, mulled around. Then, the light turns on in my room and an ER doctor appears. I think, okay, this is it, now I must be dead because I am imagining that someone actually came into my room to look at me. He asks if he can examine the area where the pain is generating from. Of course, I say, please. A quick look and he immedietly orders an emergency ultrasound, which confirms the worst case scenario: I am experiencing testicular torsion, a totally random and unexplainable phenomoma when a testicle rotates, twisting the spermatic cord that brings blood to the scrotum. The reduced blood flow causes sudden and severe pain and requires emergency surgery. If treated quickly, the testicle can usually be saved but when blood flow has been cut off for too long, a testicle might become so badly damaged that it has to be removed, causing permament damage and the loss of fertility.

I am strangely relieved that I have an emergency situation which has a solution. That particular doctor's shift ends and a different one comes in with some med students. They try to manually un-twist the testicle - at this point, I don't even know what pain is anymore. The new orders Nurse A to give me morphine to help with the pain, and of course, after two hours of purposely ignoring me, what do you think she does? Gives me the clinical bare minimum amount. The doctor checks in with me in a few minutes and asks if I am feeling better? Umm no, I feel the same. He asks the nurse to give me more, and of course, she doesn't. Why would Nurse A break character now? I am then told that a different hospital in the city has a highly esteemed urology department that will be performing my emergency surgery, and an ambulance is being called to transport me there. The paramedics arrive and upon reviewing my charts, immedietly ask why I haven't been given any pain medication. I have absolutely no idea, I respond, and finally, at around 7:10 am, I am given morphine to calm down the pain. My phone is at 3%. I call my wife. I tell her, I have great news: I am heading in an ambulance to have emegency surgery. She doesn't think its that great of news, but then she has no idea that until the ER doctor came in, I was treated like a bag of trash, left alone in a dark room, being ignored while I literally cried and begged for help.

I arrive at the new hospital and the rest of it feels like a dream. I am not being ignored. I have a wristband. I am being talked to with respect and dignity. The nurse has me in an overflow room. A porter wheels me down to surgery. I met the team shortly before I go under. Next thing I know I am opening my eyes and its been two hours almost. It's past 11:00 am and I in surgery recovery. Everything went great and my testicle was saved. More importantly, my fertility will not be affected. Despite being tossed into a black room, I am alive, I am healing, and yes, I have a massive incision in my scrotum with stithces in. Recovery time will be four to six weeks (edit: its more like eight to ten weeks).

I spend the rest of the time alone, in my room, with a dead phone, and nothing to do but think. Try to understand what just happened to me. Shockingly, the surgery to my groin is the last thing on my mind. Why was I disgarded? Why didn't I get a wristband at the initial ER? Why did Nurse A keep walking past me? Why didn't she give me any pain medication, not once, but twice? Why was I left naked and alone in a dark room? What did I do to deserve this?

Nurse A saw a coloured man in his 30s, with no identification, presenting symptoms of vomitting, urinating and pain, and assumed that the pain I was experiencing must not be valid. Is it because I didn't present in a way appropriate to her liking (a liking which I could love to understand as she choose to work as an ER nurse)? Is it because she is used to seeing other POCs come in with similar symptoms who might be on drugs? Off the streets? Does that make them, or me, any less human? Do they, or I, deserve any less care? Any less respect? Any less compassion?