I was cruising the internet looking for something, anything interesting.
Here’s something…
Joan Rivers “Resting Comfortably” After Cardiac Arrest.
Wow.
A) Hope she’s going to be ok
B) What a bunch of baloney
Stick with me on this.
Back a bunch of years ago, before I started the original Channel Two Morning News, I was doing medical reporting.
The camera guy and I were following an ER doctor around at Kaiser.
The subject of the story was “what’s all that stuff they do as a part of a physical exam?”
Everybody knows about a doc sticking their fingers here and up there and listening and looking.
But what is it when he or she taps your chest?
These were the mysteries we were going to unravel.
Oh Lordy I was feeling bad that night.
Sick as a dog would not adequately cover it.
Finally the doc glances at me and says, “You okay?”
Can’t keep anything from the sharp eye of medicine.
I run through everything going on including the pain in my lower right area and other things that should lead to a quick and accurate diagnosis.
He says, “You probably got a bug of some sort. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
Thanks.
Interview over and we head back to the station, edit the story and I go home.
Two o’clock in the morning I wake up with everything on fire.
So I take myself back to the ER at 4 in the morning.
Too bad he wasn’t still on duty.
The new doc takes one look at me and says ruptured appendix – take this bad boy to the OR.
Stat.
No one even asked about my insurance.
The next day the surgeon who was called out of bed to fix me says he spent 4 hours cleaning up the mess inside.
I liked that guy and thanks to his mother for teaching him to be neat.
So, here I am…
Laying in the hospital bed, tubes running in and out, drugged to the gills and thinking I’m dying cause a lot of things hurt, a lot.
Six o’clock and time for the news with Joe Moore.
They run my story and afterwards he says, “Courtney Harrington had a bout of appendicitis but he’s ‘resting comfortably’ in the hospital tonight. We send him our best.”
“Resting comfortably”?
My insides are on fire, they won’t give me ice cream and none of my friends will sneak me a beer.
I think I’m dying and he’s saying I’m “resting comfortably” – and nothing about being a great trooper and doing the story.
Point of all this –
Joan Rivers is not resting comfortably.
I feel for her.
No one in the hospital ever rests comfortably.
Spokespeople always say someone is resting comfortably.
That’s because they don’t want to say the patient is hurting and grumpy and having to use a bedpan.
If they were resting comfortably they’d have been sent home with some pills and a very large bill.
So Joan – hang in.
At least one person really knows how you feel.
Update: Joan Rivers was removed from life support and died on September 4th. Rest in peace.