Chapter 2: The Hospital

Thomas fingered the white paper bracelet around his wrist, a few stray arm hairs caught within its adhesive. He sat on a stiff cot with no shield from the assault of the harsh overhead lighting above. He was having a hard time adjusting to the IV in his arm, its constant cool, tugging sensation a reminder of his symptoms.

A hospital bracelet with patient information worn on the wrist, highlighting its role in identification and patient care management.

“I’m having trouble breathing,” he had said on the phone a few hours earlier, his voice hoarse and strained. “And there’s a pain in my chest.” Thomas had woken up in the middle of the night in a deep sweat, home alone in his apartment in the city. His heart was racing. Relax, he tried to calm himself. But trying to relax only made him feel more stressed at his inability to decompress.

“Sir,” began a distant voice on the other end of the line. It was steady and assertive in contrast to his own. “We’re sending an ambulance to your apartment. Are you able to make it five more minutes?”

“Yes,” Thomas had managed. “Yes, I can wait.” He closed his eyes and drew a long breath, attempting to assure both the operator and his own inner psyche.

At the hospital, a nurse buzzed around Thomas’s room. She had told him that the elderly man he was meant to be sharing his barracks with had died just an hour prior to his arrival. He thought the way the nurse said it made it feel as though Thomas should have found it a relief. He did not. Without a word about it, the nurse took Thomas’s arm within her icy grip and Velcroed a thick band around his bicep. As it began to tighten and inflate, a six-foot-plus man in scrubs traipsed into his room, which, itself being small and empty, stood in stark contrast to his towering and dense features.

“Mr. Brandon,” the man in scrubs said. He had to have been about six foot three, maybe four, Thomas thought, with slick-backed dark hair. He had a carefully practiced bedside manner that evoked an inherent sense of distrust in Thomas. “I’m Dr. Ford. How are you feeling?” He took a seat on a wheeling ottoman beside the bed.

“Better,” Thomas said, which was true. “My chest still feels a bit tight, but overall I feel better than I did a few hours ago.” Thomas looked up at the clock behind Dr. Ford. It was three in the morning.

“That’s good,” Dr. Ford said, looking over a clipboard in his hands. “No pain?”

“Well, there wasn’t really ever any pain,” he began. “It was more of an intense discomfort.”

Dr. Ford nodded intently, then looked up from the clipboard to Thomas and said: “When we’re looking for a heart attack, pain in the chest is one of the most common red flags we see–”

“Oh, I didn’t think it was a heart attack,” Thomas interrupted in a feeble attempt to convey that he wasn’t…well…out of his right mind.

“I see.” Dr. Ford said. “Well, what did you think it was, then?”

“I guess that’s why I’m here.” Thomas sat up in the uncomfortable bed, his papery hospital gown gathering at his knees. “To see what you think.”

Dr. Ford smiled at Thomas in a manner he found to be not not patronizing. Dr. Ford looked down at the clipboard in his hands once more. “It says here you’ve got a history of anxiety and depression — is that true?”

“Well, yes…” Thomas began, now acutely aware of the direction this conversation would be heading. This was where it always went — when he visited his primary care physician with complaints of pain in his sternum, or his neurologist with bouts of recurring fatigue. At the end of the day, every doctor brushed off his symptoms once they were made aware of his mental health diagnoses. “But I haven’t been feeling any anxiety at all lately — that’s the weird thing.” Thomas made one last attempt to have this doctor see things from his perspective.

“Even if you don’t feel like you have anxiety, it doesn’t mean it’s not there. We see this in patients with your symptoms all the time.”

“I see.” Thomas looked down at his hands. He couldn’t stop fiddling with the thin bracelet around his wrist. “So, what now?”

“Well, you’re good to go.” Dr. Ford said, gesturing to the nurse. She came to the bedside and began disassembling Thomas’s blood pressure monitor.

“That’s it?” Thomas asked in disbelief.

“We’ll get you a referral for a psychiatrist on the way out, alright?” Dr. Ford patted him on the leg as he stood up.

“I already have one,” Thomas said.

“Great! Less work for us,” Dr. Ford laughed, and then he was gone.