Wanna See my Kidney Stone?

I'm not a big fan of Emergency Rooms -  who is?  Yet there I was on Sunday night, IV pain killers running through my veins, being prepped for a CT scan to assess the size of the kidney stones that were the culprits responsible for ruining my weekend.  I'd surreptitiously snuck my cell phone into my room - my Dad had been in and out of Emergency Rooms a lot between 2007 and 2009, and I remembered the huge placards at almost every turn in the ER warning, "NO cell phones, two-way radios, or pagers of any kind allowed."   But there was no way that I was going to be separated from my blackberry - the kidney stones could go, the blackberry had to stay.

I was actually quite proud of how I'd managed to get my blackberry concealed on the gurney with me.  Nestled between the edge of my flimsy hospital gown and the thin blanket covering my legs, my blackberry blinked on and off reassuringly up at me, letting me know that I was still connected to the rest of the world.  Who needs a stuffed animal for cuddling in the hospital, when you can snuggle up to a smartphone instead?

Dan, the efficient and cheery nurse, sauntered into my room pushing a wheelchair, announced that the CT scan folks were ready for me, and whipped the blanket off my legs, knocking the blackberry into plain vew.  Busted! 

I was trying to think of some plausible reason for why I had a blackberry under my hospital gown, but the IV drugs were clouding my capacity for effective lying.  "Oh my gosh, where did that come from?" was the only thing I could think of at the moment, but even in my drug-induced state, I realized that was too lame to try. 

Dan reached down, picked up the phone, and said to me, "You should really put this on the side table if you want to use it while you're in here.  You wouldn't believe how many of these things get lost when people leave them on the bed and the sheets get changed."  Huh?  "You mean I'm allowed to use my phone in here?"

Turns out, times they are a-changin'.  ER patients are now encouraged to have mobile devices with them, to facilitate communication with family members, primary health care providers, etc.  The nurses even ask for the cellular contact numbers of family and friends who are in the waiting room or visiting the patient, so that they can call loved ones as needed, whether those visitors are in the ER or beyond the hospital facilities. 

As a patient, I had very little exposure to the myriad ways in which technology has facilitated the medical PROVIDER experience - but in the following 24 hours that I stayed in the hospital, I got a very clear sense of how technology is changing the PATIENT experience.

Starting with my CT scan itself.  By the time I was back in the ER, the attending physician (the wonderful Dr. Tyan) was already studying the scan on the monitor by my bed.  She showed me the offending stones, noting that they were extremely large (which was apparent even to my untrained eye - on the CT scan, if I were a chicken, it looked like I was about to lay some pretty decent eggs).  She'd already forwarded the CT scan to the on-call urologist, Dr. Martinez, and he in turn was in the process of scheduling my surgery for the following day.  Scan, consultation, surgery decision - all made within an hour of my entering the ER, and all made possible because of technological communications capacities. 

I was moved to the main hospital to await surgery the following morning, and there on my headboard was the next surprise.  A laminated card that proudly proclaimed, "Kaiser is now fully wi fi accessible.  Log in instructions attached!" So for the next several hours, I lounged in my bed like some sort of hybrid Borg creature from the Star Trek series - IV tubes physically attached to my arms, electronic monitors measuring my vital signs, and laptop balanced firmly on my legs - I surfed the web for information on kidney stone surgery, emailed friends and co-workers, and communicated with my primary physician over Kaiser's secure site regarding my upcoming surgery.  And of course, there was my blackberry, tucked again between my blanket and my hospital gown, blinking reassuringly up at me.

The hospital room itself was a consumer technology advertisement.  I had my own flatscreen TV, complete with remote controlled DVD player.  Satellite TV channels and radio.  There was even a booklet in my bedside table listing all of my viewing and listening options.  Who had time for all this?  I was in the hospital to have my guts ripped open, not to watch reruns of the Golden Girls.  But it was a nice diversion to be able to employ when my roommate decided to have a lengthy and vocal social interaction with his bedpan.  I've always liked Betty White, but she achieved near Sainthood for me when she saved me from having to listen any longer to my roomie's play-by-play color commentary of his bowel movements. 

I'll skip over any discussion of the ensuing surgery, except to say that I really don't ever want to know how they got that camera inside me to take the photos that they did.  That's one technological innovation that I wlll happily remain clueless about. 

But as I was being wheeled back to my room post-op, barely regaining consciousness, the first thing the attending nurse said to me when I opened my eyes was, "Oh good!  You're awake!  Here's your cell phone.  We should call your sister to tell her it's time to come pick you up!"  So I did, and then happily dozed back off again, clutching my blackberry security blanket.