Longest. Day. Of. My. Life

Ten years ago, October 30, 2014 was the longest day of my life, thus far. Randy had seen a neurosurgeon who pretty much knew what he had from the scans but he had to do a biopsy before treatment could start. He submitted the request to the insurance company and we waited. And waited. Randy’s symptoms were getting worse by the day. I called the doctor and he told me I had the option of taking him through the ER to be admitted. I thought, “well heck yeah! That sounds easy.”

It was at CRMC in Fresno, the largest trauma center in CA. I had my youngest daughter with me who was pregnant at the time. It did not take long for them to call us in at around 10am. The nurse was not friendly but hey, we were in an ER room. This room was super small. Randy felt like he had to use the bathroom every 10 minutes. My daughter was feeling nauseous. Randy was shivering. The bed in there was about 5 feet so Randy couldn’t fit his whole body on the bed. Hours went by. When the nurse came in I tried asking her for information and she said things like “I don’t know when he will be admitted but if you don’t want to wait, go ahead and leave.” “I have people lining up waiting for this bed so if you leave someone else will just get his spot.” There were other exchanges but you get the drift. I was texting my cousin about it and she said “write her name down.” I responded “oh I won’t forget this bitch’s name. It’s Rhonda.”

During the day there was so much commotion and noise. At one point they left a young man on a gurney outside our door (we could see him through the window) who was obviously withdrawing from alcohol. His arms and legs were strapped down and he had a spit mask on. It was so sad and overwhelming. He kept crying out for his mom! He had no privacy and no one was with him. It was traumatic for both Kiley and I. More and more hours went by. It was probably about 11-12 hours by now. All of us thought we were going crazy! I know hospitals are busy and doing their best (I can attest to that too with Randy being hospitalized for 3 months) but I finally asked to speak to a supervisor. A guy came in who was responsible for locating beds in this huge hospital. He looked me in the eyes and said “I promise to have a bed for him by midnight.” I wasn’t 💯 sold but I was grateful he was trying. Not long after he came in with an inflated mattress long enough for Randy’s body and several warm blankets. Again, we were so grateful but if it were this easy why why why couldn’t that nurse (Rhonda!) have done that or asked someone else to?

My mind was going a million directions. I wanted to ask her “do you prefer to see patients suffer and be uncomfortable for hours when 10 minutes of your time could change that?” But I didn’t, which was a smart move at that point. About 11:50 they came in to transfer Randy and we followed them to the nicest room ever. I described it as feeling like we went from hell to heaven. They got Randy settled in his new bed and I looked up at the clock. 11:59! He made good on his promise! It only took 14 hours!

It was the longest day from hell with an angel at the end making it better. There’s always those angels! And Rhonda, you were actually the only bad nurse out of hundreds we experienced. I hope you found a new career or at least a change in assignments, took a vacation, went to therapy, something, anything, so you could do what all those other nurses did: CARE!