Emergency (Bath)Room

The warm water spraying out of the shower faucet hit the tile like heavy rain, fogging up

the glass of the shower door pressed to my cheek. I wondered if I should call an ambulance as I

idly watched red ribbons swirl down the drain like the twirling Chinese dancers I saw perform in

San Francisco with my mother. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she whispered to me as I watched the fabrics

fly through the air. I nodded because it was—their sharp, rhythmic movements of long, colorful

ribbons gliding with seamless precision to form patterns and designs captivated me. It was true

perfection—something I would never understand. I knew my mother had only brought me along

with her group of friends because I was deep in a depressive episode. Maybe she thought getting

out of the house was good for me. Maybe she thought this performance would lighten my mood.

Or maybe she just wanted the extra company. Mostly, I think she was just afraid of what I’d do if

she left me alone. On the shower floor, I realized her concerns were warranted given my current

situation. I wiped the steam from the glass door and eyed my cell phone on the rug as I thought

about what I would say, ​Hey, 9-1-1? Sorry to bother you. Are you busy? Yeah, I can hold.

The first time I went to the emergency room for myself was when I was eighteen. I had

gone to the ER many times before. You see, my family has a lot of health issues. Except for my

dad, he’s just an idiot. Well, I guess that’s not totally fair. He has some medical problems, but

the hospital visits never have anything to do with them. For instance, one time my dad was trying

to teach me how to dive in Palm Springs. I should probably clarify that I was seven or eight at

this time and my father was a drunk. We had been eating outside with my grandparents and

suddenly, my dad decided he wanted to be a swim instructor. He abandoned his plate, stumbled

over to the pool, and yelled out to me, “Anne! C’mere! I— I’m gon’ teach you . . . how dive!”
 I looked over to my grandmother as she shook her head. She had already taught me how

to dive earlier that day. “Don’t be an idiot, James!” my grandmother called out to her son. “It’s

dark and the lights in the pool are turned off!” There was no response so we went back to eating.

Then I heard a splash. I looked up at my mother with wide eyes as she continued to poke at her

salad with a fork. She had already become accustomed to my father’s drunken shenanigans. My

grandmother stood up with a sigh and mumbled to herself in annoyance.

She had already saved one life earlier that week when we first arrived. My brother, just a

toddler at the time, saw her gorgeous pool in the backyard, immediately walked towards it, and

fell in. I guess he didn’t really fall as much as he beelined in that direction and walked right into

the pool. I was distracted by the surface sparkling with the sun’s reflection. I didn’t realize what

was happening until my grandmother sprung into action and leaped into the pool after him. She

emerged a few seconds later with my brother and set him on the patio soaking wet. “Dylan, you

made me get my pearls all wet,” my grandmother whined as she climbed the steps out of the

pool. The flowy dress she had been wearing clung to her frame and her previously curled hair

hung around her face like wet ropes. She picked up my brother and started to head back inside.

I followed behind her and asked, “Grandma, aren’t pearls from the ocean?”

She stopped walking. “Lock the door behind us. We don’t need any more accidents.”

My grandmother tried so hard to keep us safe that she neglected to look after the biggest

idiot of all, my father. As she walked towards the pool to look for him that evening, he emerged

from a bush looking out of breath. “Did’ya see?”

“No, Daddy,” I began as I picked up another piece of pizza. “It’s nighttime.”

My grandmother gasped and walked over to my father. “James! Your head!”

 “What?” he mumbled as she held his head firmly in her hands, inspecting the area.

I remembered what my grandmother had taught me earlier and asked him, “Did you

remember to hold your hands above your head?” My father nodded with a look of confusion,

probably because he still believed he was the one teaching me how to dive.

“Damnit, James Matthew!” my grandmother yelled. “You need stitches!” I put my hand

over my mouth and giggled. My parents only used my middle name when I was in trouble and

since she had also used a bad word, I knew my dad was in deep shit. She stared at him with an

intimidating demeanor the entire time he was getting stitches. When we got home around 11, she

even yelled at him, “Go to your room!” Later that night, I shuffled to the back door in my purple

footie pajamas to make sure it was locked.

The next time I visited my father in the emergency room, I was a couple years older. My

mother told me that something had happened to him at work and she was going to see him in the

ER. Even though it was past my bedtime, I begged her to take me and she eventually caved. I can

remember when I first saw him lying in that hospital bed, wrapped in the traditional gown, sweat

running down his face like the water droplets outside a cold can of Coke. I couldn’t take my eyes

away from his hands and the way they shook as he held on to the safety bars around the bed. It

was the first time I can remember seeing my father so scared.

“Is Daddy going to die?” I asked my mother as we watched from the background while

the doctors around him did whatever doctors do.

“No,” my mother responded quickly. “He just had a panic attack.”

I didn’t know what those were at the time. I would experience them later in life and scoff

at this memory in disbelief. How many panic attacks have I had over the years? Definitely over a
hundred. Maybe two hundred? I don’t know. What I ​do​ know is that I probably shouldn’t brag

about having panic attacks, but it’s the only thing I’m good at, so please just let me have this.

Mostly, I want you to understand that none of my panic attacks ended up in a hospital visit like

my father. For some time, I thought this made him weak. Though I probably only told myself

that because I wanted to believe I was strong in some way.

You may be asking yourself: Anne, I thought you were going to tell us about your first

emergency room visit? Don’t worry, I’ll get there. What I need you to understand is that I swore

I would never be my father. It didn’t help that every adult I met would tell me things like, “You

sound just like your father!” or “You look just like your father!” I took offense to the latter. The

idea that I could turn into my father one day terrified me. It’s not that I didn’t love him—I loved

him very much. I still do, but that doesn’t mean I wanted to be the man. Look, I know I give my

father a lot of shit, but can you blame me? This is the same guy that snorted weed as a teenager

to impress his friends and then went to the hospital freaking out because he believed it was stuck

in his nasal cavity. The same idiot that ​accidentally​ stabbed himself with a pencil after reportedly

falling on it and then proceeded to ask my mother if she could take him to the ER before telling

her, “I have a pretty bad splinter.” Occasionally though, he would surprise me.

The only time he refused to go to the emergency room was a time he clearly should have

gone. On his days off, he would go out and play golf with his brothers. I should also mention that

alcohol was usually involved. One day, they were teeing off at the 11th hole when my Uncle Tim

shanked a ball sharply to his left where my father happened to be standing. The golf ball hit him

in the side of the head as he was watching to see where my uncle’s shot would land. Turns out he

didn’t need to look far. My uncle told me he was unconscious for about 25-30 seconds before he
came to. They offered to take him to the hospital, but my father insisted on finishing the round,

which he did. The first thing he told us when he got home was that he played poorly. Then he

told us about the incident. As you can probably guess, my mother was furious.

“You what!” my mother scolded as she dropped the plate she was washing into the sink

and turned around to stare at my father the way my grandmother did that one night in the ER.

“I’m fine. Look, there’s not even a bump.”

My mother rolled her eyes. “Just because you can’t see anything doesn’t mean there isn’t

a problem!” she pointed out. “James, what if you have a concussion?”

My father burped loudly and grabbed his keys from the counter. “Fine, fine. I’ll go.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” my mother said taking them from his clammy hands. “I’m driving.”

All these years later, I’m glad he went. He ended up being fine, but the idea of what

could have happened had he not gone to the hospital scared the hell out of me. My CPR

instructor once told me about a guy that fell off of a barstool and hit his head on the counter of

the bar. Someone called an ambulance to get him checked out, but the old man refused care

when the paramedics arrived. They tried to get him to understand the seriousness of the situation,

but he was adamant about not leaving the bar. Did you know that people are allowed to refuse

care as long as they understand their particular medical situation and the potential risk associated

with it? That’s insane to me—and I’m already crazy. Anyway, his family found him dead the

next morning. Turns out he had torn a blood vessel in his brain when he hit his head. As the clot

grew larger, the pressure in his skull increased to the point where he felt drowsy and confused.

Sometime after falling asleep, the man suffered a subdural hematoma. Physicians and

neurologists call it “talk and die syndrome”.

 This brings me to my first emergency room visit. A part of me sympathizes with the man

who lost his life because I understand how terrifying a visit to the doctors can be. Growing up, I

always hated going to the antiseptic hellhole filled with sadists in white lab coats. Needles scared

me, blood freaked me out, and I hated the unknown fear associated with a waiting room. This all

changed towards the end of my freshman year of high school when I was first diagnosed with

depression among other disorders. (We already knew I had OCD when I was younger because

my father noticed I was displaying the same symptoms he did during his childhood. Thanks,

Dad.) Physical pain is nothing compared to psychological pain. I had no other choice than to

become stronger—to fear nothing other than the wily demons I kept locked in defective cages.

Hospitals and doctor’s offices became second homes. I slowly grew accustomed to the white lab

coats and needles, the faces and sounds of human suffering, blood, urine, bile, and the smell of

cleaning solutions and bleach attempting to mask the rancid trace of lingering death.

I began to measure strength in terms of one’s pain threshold. (My became very high as a

result of my suffering.) No one noticed my newfound willpower besides my mother. She went

with me to every appointment which meant she watched me transform from the scared girl that

hid under a chair screaming to avoid a shot into the listless woman who told every doctor when

they asked her if she was ready: “Just fucking stab me.” There was a time where I got a scraped

knee as a child and when my mother asked me where it hurt, I said, “Everywhere!” Now when I

get a cut or a scrape, I usually don’t notice until I see it. Despite this, I still vowed to never go to

an emergency room unless a bone was sticking out of my body or a finger ended up in a plastic

bag with ice. It’s hard for someone to sympathize with an ache they can’t see.
 Okay, I promise now, we’re finally here. I was a senior in high school when I first went

to the emergency room for myself. It was a Saturday evening before sunset. I know it was

because I was the only one home. My father and mother were having date night, my brother was

next door at a friend’s house, and I was in my bedroom watching ​It’s Always Sunny in

Philadelphia​ in the pajamas I had been wearing for two days straight. I didn’t leave the house on

the weekends. My stomach began to hurt pretty badly. I went over the normal questions one asks

themselves when this occurs: 1. Do you need to take a shit? 2. When’s the last time you’ve

eaten? 3. Do you think you are getting sick? I did everything I could think of. Seven

unsuccessful trips to the toilet, one granola bar shoved down my throat, two Pepto Bismol

tablets, and six Tums. Do you know what it’s like to force yourself to eat granola when you feel

like you’re being stabbed in the stomach repeatedly? As you can probably guess, this all only

made my condition worse.

I thought I was dying so I decided to lay down on the bathroom floor until the angels flew

me up to heaven or the demons dragged me to hell. Then I pulled my phone from my pocket and

called my brother to give him the news. “Dylan, I’m dying.” I could hear the other boys in the

background playing video games.

“What?” he said as the voices began to fade. I guessed he left the room.

I cleared my throat. “Dude, I think I’m dying. Can you bring me water? My stomach

hurts so bad. This might be it.”

He sighed loudly, “Seriously? I just got here.”

“Please!” I begged before I heard the doorbell ring in the background on the phone.

“Who’s that?” I winced when a sharp pain tightened in my abdomen.

 “Pizza just got here. Get your own water.” He hung up the phone and I was left amazed

by his lack of concern, but I was not shocked. I did tend to be overdramatic sometimes. Like the

time my extended family and I were on vacation and I had become so annoyed with my alcoholic

father that I gathered all the liquor in our hotel room and went out to the balcony to throw bottles

of vodka and rum at innocent palm trees. I should probably mention that this was a turning point

for our family in regards to my father’s addiction and my own mental health. While the palm tree

crimes I committed were the beginning of my slow descent into the deep end, my father’s critical

moment was during my grandmother’s sixtieth birthday dinner on the beach (the real reason we

were there) when he decided to give a toast and almost took a nosedive into the candlelit table.

Luckily, my mother caught him, like she always did, and since most of my family were

used to his behavior, the celebration went on. I had never heard my parents fight as much as they

did during that family trip. It didn’t help that we all had to share one room. I watched from the

dance floor that night as my mother helped him to a canopy bed away from the party. She was

also the one that had calmed me down earlier from my episode on the balcony—taking away the

remaining bottles from my shaking hands, sweeping up the broken glass I hadn’t noticed before,

and cleaning the cuts from my hands, arms, and feet as I screamed my frustration into a pillow.

My mom listened and rubbed my back without judgment as a mix of hate and hurt spewed from

my mouth, even though I was essentially talking shit about her husband. I’m unaware of the

specifics, but after that trip, there was a family intervention I wasn’t invited to and my father

ended up going to rehab where he eventually got better. I still remember the look on his face

before he entered that building. It was the second time I can remember seeing my father so

scared. Sometimes, I feel like he doesn’t deserve my mom, but then again, neither do I.
 Still on the bathroom floor, the pain was becoming unbearable. I decided to call my mom.

When she didn’t answer, I decided to call my dad. When he didn’t answer, I shot my mom a text

and started to crawl downstairs. At this point, it had been about two hours since the excruciating

agony started and I began to cry as I scooted my ass down the steps like I did when I was a child.

Once I reached the bottom, I heard my phone go off in my pocket and pulled it out.

Me: ​SOS. My stomach is in a lot of pain and I think I need to go to the ER. I don’t mean to rush

you, but I might be dying so I thought I’d let you know just in case. My will is in my desk.

Mom: ​Okay, we’re leaving.

My stomach felt like I had accidentally swallowed a functioning chainsaw. I crawled over

and waited next to the front door, leaning against the wall like a strung out ragdoll until I finally

heard the fumbling of keys. My father entered first and tripped over me. He apologized and then

asked me, “Cramps?” I would have slapped him if I had the energy.

My mother was a bit more worried when she saw me. “I’m going to change really quick

and then I’ll take you.” She was up the stairs before I could respond. My father followed her to

get changed into his Snuggie. (This wasn’t a detail that I specifically remember, but if he’s not in

work clothes or dinner clothes, he’s in a Snuggie.) I asked him to throw me a bra and some shoes

from my room as I was still in my pajamas, which he did—albeit the flip flops did smack me in

the face at the bottom of the stairs. Believe it or not, this was a step in the right direction for my

father. A few years earlier, my mother and I would have still been outside pulling my father out

of a bush to drag him into the house towards the living room to pass out on the rug.
 The car ride there was horrible. Every twist and turn made me wince and moan in agony.

When we finally arrived, I thought I would be put on a gurney and rushed into a room by doctors

and nurses yelling things in medical language beyond my understanding. Apparently, emergency

rooms have waiting rooms. I thought it was for the worried family and friends of the patient, but

I guess it’s also for the patients, too. I sat in the corner weeping quietly as I constantly readjusted

my position in the chair. It hurt to move, but it hurt more to remain still. I’m sure they would’ve

let me in already if my eyeball was popping out of my skull, but just like most things in life, no

one cares about what’s on the inside.

We waited in that room for over an hour as the evening transitioned into night. Sweat was

beginning to drip off of my chair. There was a little girl across the way staring at me as she held

her broken wrist and then loudly bragged to her parents, “It doesn’t even hurt that bad.” I could

see the sprain from my chair and I started to feel embarrassed because I just looked like a crazy,

constipated, clammy Bigfoot with emotional problems—which to be fair, isn’t too far off from

how I usually look. Finally, they got me into the preliminary room where someone takes your

blood pressure and asks you questions. Everything else I remember about that night are like the

blurry snippets one recounts after a night of drinking, except I’m sure about what I ​do​ remember

because I was unfortunately ​not​ under the influence of drugs during most of my stay.

Allow me to summarize: I was then put in another room to change into a hospital gown, a

nurse had me pee in a cup, a different nurse aggressively put an IV in my forearm which just so

happened to be a nice distraction from the garden shears slicing and dicing my organs, he then

moved me and my rolling bag of fluids into a bigger room, I made my mom promise to euthanize

me if the doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong, which she did not, I asked the doctor (who
just so happened to be hot) with the pain-relieving drugs to “Put it in me!” which I can now see

in retrospect the problematic ambiguity of that sentence and the reason for his reaction, another

doctor tried to give me a pelvic exam because he thought I had an STD, which I firmly declined

as a virgin, and when he didn’t believe me, I preceded to go into detail about my nonexistent sex

life and my vibrator until he finally stopped pressing the issue, the muscle relaxer started to work

and ease the pain, a radiology technician rolled me in a wheelchair to the X-ray room and gave

me a CT scan, and then I was brought back to my room to wait for the results. Luckily, they

didn’t take long since it was after midnight now. The doctor came back with my X-ray and

declared my diagnosis, “You have a kidney stone.”

I thought only older people got kidney stones, but he told me that teenagers can get them,

too. Apparently, there was a 4 mm rock inside of me trying to make its way out of my ureter.

The average ureter (the duct through which urine passes from the kidney to the bladder) is only

about 3 mm wide. Imagine a jagged corn kernel trying to make its way through a straw and I’m

talking a metal straw, not those flimsy paper ones or the original plastic version that’s causing

sea turtle genocide. Now imagine that kernel is a tiny sea urchin. That’s what my insides felt

like. People say kidney stone pain is a lot like childbirth. The only difference is they pop out

human beings and I was delivering a fucking rock. Dr. Hoo-Hoo Hunter, MD, wrote me a

prescription for some painkillers, gave me self-care instructions for the next few weeks, and sent

me on my way.

When we finally left around 2 a.m. that night exhausted, I turned to my mom at a red

light and said, “Thank you for believing me . . . and taking me.”

She turned with a yawn and then smiled. “I’ll always be there for you, Anne.”
 “So you’ll be there when I give birth to my stone?” I asked as I rubbed my stomach.

“No, Anne. I’m not going to hold your hand by the toilet and tell you to push if that’s

what you’re implying.” I chuckled lightly as the light turned green and we went home.

The instructions the doctor had given me required that I pee in a bucket for the next two

weeks and then put the contents through a strainer so I could get the rock. Then a lab would test

it and find out what kind of stone my kidneys made. Okay, I lied before. I actually did this for a

month until I realized the stone could no longer possibly still be inside of me. Somehow, the

little sucker had gotten by me. (It was most likely one of the times I got up to use the bathroom

in the middle of the night and forgot to grab the bucket.) I was pissed (pun intended). I had no

proof of the agony I went through. How was I supposed to know that it was even real? Yes, there

was the X-ray, but my urologist had it. My little rock baby was flushed down the toilet one night

and the only evidence of my suffering went with it. I’m a terrible mother.

In these final moments, I feel like I owe you guys the whole truth. Like my father, there

was one time I should have (probably) gone to the emergency room and I didn’t. I never said I

wasn’t an idiot, too. About a year after the kidney stone visit, I did something bad and it wasn’t

an accident. I took twenty pills of Klonopin, one by one by one. I thought that maybe I would

feel better if I took just one more because that’s how medication works, right? It’s supposed to

make you feel better. That’s all I wanted. I only stopped because I was tired. When I woke up the

next day extremely groggy, I didn’t even remember what I had tried to do until I found the note.

I guess this makes me the biggest idiot of all. Maybe I’m more like my father than I thought. Or

maybe I’m worse.

 There’s a big difference between my father and I. For as long as I can remember, he has

always been terrified of dying (though I feel like this is common in humans). That’s why he went

to the ER with my mother after the golf ball incident. As I popped pills on that lonely night, there

was time for me to call an ambulance. There was time for me to wake up my parents to take me

to the hospital if I was too scared to call them myself. There was even time for me to call my best

friend in case I was too ashamed for my parents to find out what I did, but I didn’t do anything. I

only wrote a half-assed, barely readable letter in my notes app telling everyone that I was sorry.

At least when my father refused to go to the emergency room, it was because he thought he was

okay. When I chose not to go that night, I knew I wasn’t. I didn’t want help. I didn’t want white

lab coats to pump my stomach or wrap me up in gauze or give me stitches. Unlike my father, I

wasn’t afraid I was going to die. I was afraid I was going to live.

The water was beginning to run cold in the shower as I finally noticed how dizzy I felt. I

was surprised to see I had unconsciously grabbed some gauze and was applying pressure to my

clotting femoral artery. (I obviously didn’t go deep enough to nick the artery. How do you think

I’m telling this story? Spoiler alert: I live.) You may be asking yourself: Anne, why the femoral

artery? Wrists are so cliché nowadays. I grabbed the blade again. I was about two months into

this depressive episode. I had gone through many before. The only difference was that this was

the first time I was going through one by myself. Away at college, I was completely alone. No

one understood what I was going through and I didn’t expect them to. I barely left my room and

my roommates partied too much to notice anything. I could have killed myself weeks ago and

they would have never known. Well, I guess the smell eventually would have alerted them, but

that’s besides the point. This was my only chance to do it the way I wanted to. I promised myself
I would never let my mother be the one to find me like that at home in my bed or the bathtub or

the garage. I wouldn’t do that to her. I couldn’t. Not after everything she had done for me.

I jumped and watched the blade shoot out of my hand and go down the drain when my

phone rang from outside the shower door. I was a little upset, but mainly at the thought of how I

was going to explain this to my plumber. I turned off the water and opened the shower door to

pick up the phone. It was my mother. “Mom?”

“I’m just a few minutes away,” she said after letting out a sigh of relief. I could tell she

had me on speaker by the sound of cars passing by in the background.

“A few minutes away from what?”

“Your apartment.”

“Wait, what!” I spluttered in panic as I tried to get up from the floor slowly. “Why?”

“Do you remember the voicemails you left me last night?”

I thought back to last night and remembered the voicemails I had left her. They were all

sent about an hour apart. The first one consisted of me pretty much crying. The second one was

more serious and detached. The third was a sarcastic, self-deprecating monologue that started

with: “Hey! It’s your child. You know, the one that sucks. Just letting you know that everything

is great! I mean—all I had to do was look at everything I had. I have a bed and that bed gives me

the will to live! Oh! And how could I forget about my lamp? . . .” Mood disorders, am I right? I

guess my mom called me back two hours later that night after she got home from my brother’s

football game, but I was passed out at this point. Valium tends to make you do that.

“Oh, sorry,” I began over the phone. “I was going to call you back this morning. I guess I

forgot. Why are you coming here?” It was a four hour drive from our home back in Mendocino. I
wrapped a towel around my wet nightgown and sat on the rug in my bathroom. (I should mention

I normally don’t take showers with my clothes on—it was just in case.)

“I could hear it in your voice,” she said. “I’m scared.”

My face contorted in pain as I tried to keep myself from crying. She had been with me all

these years, every single episode. At the beginning, it was hard for her. When a mother sees their

child in pain, they will do anything to mend their suffering. They think all they have to do is find

the root of the issue and then they can fix it like solving a math problem or tending to a scraped

knee. Healing is complicated, especially when there is no logical reason. My mother understands

that now. In fact, I think she knows me better than I know myself. She is and will always be the

reason I’m still here. “What exactly are you going to do?” I asked.

She paused and then responded, “I don’t know . . . I just know that you’re sick, Anne.

And last night, I— I didn’t know if you weren’t answering because . . . I just grabbed an air

mattress, some clothes, and left.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“I’m parking right now,” she interrupted. “I’ll be there soon.” She hung up the phone

before I could say anything. I cleaned up my bathroom, put on a robe, and stood in front of the

mirror. I removed the gauze from my leg and applied some Neosporin before covering it with a

bandaid. I looked closely at the reflection in the mirror. It’s hard for someone to sympathize with

a pain they can’t see, but the problem is most people don’t look closely enough. My face was red

and my eyes were puffy, bloodshot and heavy from the weeks of silent suffering. I stared into the

mirror and saw everything. The quiet torment in my eyes. The bags beneath them from sleepless

nights. My increasingly protruding collarbone as a result of the weight loss. The bruises and cuts
on my hands from slamming fists into walls. I was so transfixed by the stranger in the mirror that

I didn’t even hear the door open. (My apartment was usually unlocked. This was partially due to

my roommates drunken forgetfulness, but also a lack of concern for my personal safety.) When I

noticed her, I turned around and immediately began to weep as I collapsed to the floor. She came

over and held me there as I cried into her shoulder. I would die for my mother. I’ll continue to

die every single day if it means not hurting her—even if it hurts me. Usually in these moments, I

tend to just cry and repeatedly apologize to my mother for my mediocre existence. I wasn’t

expecting the redundancy that came out of my mouth.

“Mom,” I began as I let everything go in her arms. “It hurts.”

She rubbed my back and whispered, “I know.”

It bewildered me how she could do that—how she always knew what the problem was

and how to treat it without ever asking me where it hurt.