It’s Wednesday night , so the story continues. Picking up from last week -

I was wondering aloud why I didn’t just leave the hospital.

I was (am still?) super stubborn, yet I listened to the doctors (for the most part), and always stayed in the hospital when I was told that I needed to stay.

You know, at the time, it seemed to be kind of a big deal ’cause it’s my heart, and it was a whole new thing for me to have a health problem. I still don’t really know anything about the AMA (Against Medial Advice) forms.

I do remember being pretty persistent (still polite, though (at least I think/hope)) both this time and two weeks prior when I’d first been admitted, that I wanted to go to work if possible. (I’m sure poor doctors and nurses get so tired about arguing with people day in and day out over what they want versus what they need. Sorry, y’all.)

I’m pretty sure that someone explained to me that the hospital’s not like a hotel where you can choose when to come and go. And let’s get real, it would’ve never been convenient even if I could’ve chosen all the days and times that would’ve been best for being sick. I still today wouldn’t know what was wrong with me, ’cause I would’ve never made enough time to go in for tests and things.

My understanding is that you can sign the AMA form and leave. But I guess there then could be problems with your insurance. And I think that hospital then has the right to refuse to treat you if it’s the same problem and not an immediately emergent situation, maybe? I, for sure, don’t know all the ins and outs of leaving the hospital early/AMA forms. I just remember it seeming pretty hard and complicated if I wanted to ditch the hops, but still get help.

And the doctors were making it seem very serious. They weren’t scaring me, or trying to make too big of a deal out of everything. But I think they wanted me to really understand the gravity (I guess) of the situation. I was told a few times that the most common way Wolff-Parkinson-White is found is in an autopsy after a young-ish person has a sudden death. Everyone definitely made it seem like I should consider myself pretty extremely lucky.

And I do. I mean, I might complain about how hard this all was, and how it threw my life plan a little (completely) out of control. In a perfect world, I wouldn’t have had a weird, congenital heart defect. But in the world where I do, I obviously would rather be set back a few years from where I thought I’d be at this point than not have a chance to make my dreams come true someday, you know, being held back by being dead and stuff.

This is a sad quote/idea. So, let’s not think about it.

And who’s to say that everything in my life would’ve gone according to plan if I wouldn’t have gotten sick? Since when does life ever go according to plan for anybody?

While in the hospital, wrestling with the disappointment of lost time, one of my friends pointed out that obviously I’m gonna be a super huge deal someday. (A sweetheart thing to say, right?) And it’s better to get all this over withnow than when I’d have to miss shooting a movie with the sexiest man alive, Ben Stiller. Touché.

Going back to the idea of being way too obsessed over never missing work – it all started in high school. I gush about high school a fair amount on this blog; sometimes it’s hard not to. ‘Cause it was amazing, my friend. I had the most amazing teacher in the universe. I adored her, and I adore her to this day.

This is where I’ll start reminiscing/trying to pull everything back together to this hospital story, next week.

Tagged: AMA form, cardiac patient, heart problems, hospital, wasted time