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A 19-year-old's departure for a second year of college
is a more peaceful occasion than her exit the previous year.
After all, she's survived a year away from home. She didn't contract
meningitis in the dorm or forget to eat her vegetables. We breathed
a sigh of relief as she made good grades and acted like a responsble
young adult.
By the time late August rolled around, all of us accepted the fact that
she was competent to take care of herself down at the big university
almost 300 miles away.
We sent Ellen off with the usual parental warnings - "Don't forget
to call us." and "Be careful." - and trusted that everything
would go smoothly in her sophomore year.
We held on to that belief right up until this past Friday's telephone
call from Ellen's friend Megan, who said Ellen had fallen out of bed
(some 6 feet from a top bunk) and was in the emergency room at UNC Memorial
Hospital in Chapel Hill.
"She doesn't want you to worry, so she had me call to say she's
OK," Megan said, guaranteeing my worry level's spike into overdrive.
"They're just checking to see if she has a collapsed lung or anything."
That's when I found out what the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
Act (1996 federal legislation journalists dislike because it limits
access to information) means to parents who are a long way from their
injured college-age children.
Citing legal constraints, no one at the ER could offer any information
about Ellen or any explanation of her medical condition. They were very
nice and let me talk to her several times, but given that she was scared
and in pain, she was not the best source of factual information.
Finally, we set out for Chapel Hill anyway, not knowing if Ellen was
going to be admitted to the hospital or sent back to her dorm.
Somewhere along I-40, in the vicinity of Hickory, we learned she would
be kept in the hospital overnight for observation but the surgeons had
decided against a chest tube. Along about Statesville we found out she
had been moved from the ER to a room in the hospital. As we approached
Burlington, Ellen told us that after looking at another chest X-ray,
those same surgeons had decided to insert a chest tube.
"Don't worry, Mom," Ellen said. "(The doctors) said it's
fine to wait until you get here to put the tube in."
After locating Room 4728 with the aid of a helpful nurse who took one
look at us and knew we were lost, we had five minutes to look Ellen
over and talk to her before we were ushered out of the room so the surgical
team could perform the "procedure."
It was about then that we felt like we'd been deposited on the set of
television's "ER."
"We'll need about 20 minutes," said the one who seemed to
be playing the role of earnest young resident Dr. Carter.
It took closer to 35. It didn't help that we saw Dr. Carter and his
boss deep in discussion in the doorway when we walked by Room "28"
(as the nurses say) after the specified 20 minutes. Or that what was
a "procedure" to them left Ellen nearly comatose.
"I know they have to explain things and teach, but it didn't make
me feel very good to hear the older one saying, 'Why don't you try this'
and 'I'd do it this way,'" Ellen said the next day.
We're all grateful that this story has a happy ending. With the aid
of the chest tube, Ellen's lung returned to normal size by Sunday, and
she left the hospital Monday to spend a week recuperating at home in
Cullowhee.
When we take her back to school, we'll have to include an additional
parental guideline. It seems an admonition we abandoned when she was
about 5 years old is relevant once more.
"Eat your vegetables," we'll say. "And don't fall out
of bed."
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