My sister says, “Wow, you really weren’t kidding about this stuff being ridiculous. What is this, your second day of being in a hospital for a thing you don’t actually get to have done?”, and I text Gil to let him know what’s going on. Things are tense between us of course, due to the ongoing and seemingly everlasting negotiations over our divorce, but we are united in agreement on a few things: one, the importance of making things as easy as possible throughout this process for our kids, and two, his natural strength in advocating and arguing with fellow medical professionals. So I text him, and he calls me, and I tearfully explain today’s clusterfuck, and he kicks into gear, making phone calls and going what the kids and I affectionately refer to as “full Binenbaum” on the doctors involved in what’s not happening today. He harangues the neurology fellow to the point where I almost feel bad for her as she calls me to apologize for the mix-up, sounding close to tears herself, and he chops through a phone tree until he finally reaches a person from the pain department who can come see me and help figure out what to do.
The nurse returns, telling me that she, too, has been making phone calls, and has also talked to Gil, and that they are tag-teaming the higher-ups who might be able to fix this and make a blood patch happen today after all, and then a resident from the pain clinic comes in, seeming bored by all of this—my tears, my pain, my frustration, my hours of waiting—and says the best they can do is shunt me over to the doctor’s office across the street, where I can be interviewed and my case reviewed, and then they can schedule me for the procedure at some later date. The resident hands me paperwork, and a Post-it note with a phone number on it for the receptionist at the pain clinic, and leaves in a breeze of curtain swishing—but the nurse takes the papers from my hands. “I did not make fifty phone calls on your behalf today to have this happen,” she tells me. “You need this done, we’re gonna get this done.” She tells me she knows the head nurse at the pain clinic, who happens to be working today in the OR where the anesthesiology team is equipped to perform a blood patch, and that she will spend her fifty-first phone call of the day calling this head nurse to work some magic and get me in.
And she does. She makes the call, and while I can’t hear enough to know exactly what she is saying, I can hear the righteous anger on my behalf, the frustration and determination in her voice, and it makes me cry all over again to hear her fight for me. And then she is back, discharge papers in hand, telling me to change back into my street clothes, that she will escort me across the street and deliver me in person to the nursing staff at the chronic pain department of the hospital for neuroscience, where the head of anesthesiology himself will fit me in as the last case of the day. My sister helps me fill out the release forms, I lie down after getting dressed until the nurse can take us where we need to go, and then we walk outside, me unsteadily, slowly, supported by the strong arm of the nurse, the sun bright in my eyes after hours inside, and reach the pain center—oh, if only there were a center to my pain, some eye in this storm—by 5 P.M.
“Is this the one you told me about?” the nurse’s friend asks. “You poor thing! Let’s get this taken care of!” My nurse hugs me and wishes me well as she heads back to the other part of the hospital, hopefully finished with her endless phone calls and patient advocacy on my behalf for the day. I’m quickly ushered to a bed, changed again into the ubiquitous backless gown and skid-free socks, visited by several anesthesiologists and nurses, and asked to go over my history yet again. Everyone is cheerful to me, apologetic, reassuring. The head anesthesiologist says he will attempt to do this blood patch a little higher than my first one, but of course he can’t perform the patch too high, even if it might be more effective, because of the risks involved. I understand; I would not like to be paralyzed, even if it might cure my headache. The anesthesiologist explains they will use fluoroscopy to be able to visualize the epidural space in my spine and make sure they are in the right place, able to inject the blood without piercing the dura. They will paint my back with lidocaine, place a catheter in my spine, fill a needle with the blood they collect from me, and push it in. The anesthesiologist examines the backs of my hands, smooth and veinless, and looks longingly at Jessie’s hands, snaking blue bulges visible to the naked eye even from his vantage point across the hospital bed. “I’ve been waiting around since about 9 this morning and haven’t anything to drink,” I tell him. “It will be impossible
