A Series Of Firsts: My First Trip To The Hospital

We were both going to the hospital.

Wet and cold after a late night November foot pursuit that ended in a river, hypothermia was a concern for me and the idiot I had chased. Personally, I wasn’t worried about hypothermia. I was worried about the fact that I couldn’t lift my arm, and even more so, that somehow I had to tell my wife.

Homecoming King

It was my first ride to the hospital in the back of an ambulance as a patient. And if I’m completely honest, I was really embarrassed because I was in full uniform. For some reason I felt like I had done something wrong. My logic went something like this: cops are the good guys and we’re not supposed to get hurt. The fact that I had been injured meant to me that I had screwed up. This feeling hung over me like a schoolyard bully.

When I rolled into the ER buckled to a gurney pushed by a handlebar-mustache-wearing firefighter in a dark blue elbow patch sweater, everyone noticed. People stopped what they were doing, heads turned, and all eyes were on me. The expressions on their faces made me feel like the Homecoming King with a bad haircut when my name was announced and the spotlight found me everyone saw what kind of magic my blind Aunt Gertrude could do to a head of hair with a dull pair of scissors and a cereal bowl — very uneven, low budget magic.

Something’s Wrong

I cringed all the way from the ambulance entrance to the exam room shouting at them in my mind, “Don’t look at me! I’m hideous!” Once in the exam room with the curtain drawn I removed my duty belt, vest, and shirt so the doctor could have a look at me. I handed my gear off to another officer and sat there feeling cold, wet, and humiliated like a freshly sheared sheep who got caught skinny dipping.

The ER doctor took a quick look at me, pushed, pulled, and pinched my arm and magnanimously determined, “Something was wrong.” I sat there puzzled that it took a medical degree and years of residency in order to inflict pain on a person and then vaguely determine that something was wrong.

My sergeant wanted an update when I had one so I needed to call into the station with my official diagnosis of “something was wrong.” It was now somewhere around 4:00 a.m. I picked up the hospital phone and absently dialed. The voice of an anxious, groggy woman who sounded suspiciously like my wife answered the phone. It was my wife and I was confused.

Sounds Familiar

Amazingly, I had mechanically dialed my home number instead of the station. My wife had answered, worried that something bad had happened because she was getting a phone call at 4:00 a.m. from a hospital while her husband was working the midnight shift. What a funny conclusion to come to.

So there I was, standing in the emergency room of the local hospital with my arm in a sling and some explaining to do. It was time to improvise. Cleverly, I crafted my next words to sooth my wife’s fears. “Sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to call you, I meant to call the station.”

My wife: “What!? What happened? Why are you at the hospital?”

Me: “Oh, me? Ya, I’m fine. I just kind of chased a guy into the river and hurt my shoulder. Don’t worry, the doctor said something’s wrong with it.”

My wife: “When did this happen!?”

Me: “Um, like an hour ago.”

My wife: “And I’m just hearing about it now!?”

Me: “In my defense, I called you by accident.” (I didn’t actually say that)

Well, you can see how this was going. I was about to have something else in a sling besides my arm. My wife likes to use a lot of exclamation points when she’s upset, though for the purposes of this article I edited them down to just one per sentence. She was mad. The toothpaste was out of the tube and there was no putting it back in.

One Coma, Please

She wanted to come down to the hospital but I told her there was no need. I was just waiting for my discharge papers and then I’d get a ride back to the PD with one of my coworkers. I thought that inconveniencing her less would help but this only made her more mad. I began to wonder if the doctor would be agreeable to ordering me a medically induced coma.

By the time I finished my paperwork at the station and filled out an injury report with my supervisor the sun was well up, but I was no closer to wanting to go home and face my angry wife. She didn’t like the way I had handled the whole situation — and she was right. My wife is a fierce defender of her doofus husband and would never want to miss out on an opportunity to go to battle for him. I had denied her that opportunity.

Collateral Damage

Suffice to say that I learned a lesson or two about work, life, and marriage. The months of recovery and frustration that followed would be taxing and require us to work together to get through it. Those were difficult times, to be sure, and ones that left me questioning my career choice, but never my marriage.

In hindsight I realized that I had inadequately planned or prepared myself and my family for a work-related injury. It was a bridge that I figured we would cross when we got to it — a non-plan if there ever was one. Deciding what you’ll do and how you’ll handle a situation like this ahead of time will make decision making in the moment easier, produce less collateral damage, and hopefully, fewer exclamation points.

This may have been my first trip to the hospital, but it would not be my last. I hope you have an injury free career, but the odds are not in your favor. Take it from me: don’t neglect or put off having the conversation with your loved ones. They will thank you for it.

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• Do you have a plan if you get hurt?
• What kind of details can you work out to make it easier on your family?
• Who is your go-to person that could be a liaison if needed?
• Or are you just going to wing it?

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