The emergency room was boring. That was a surprise to me. From watching shows like Grey’s Anatomy and House, I’d come to think of hospitals as places where exciting things happened. Patients would be screaming, needles and scalpels flying, everyone shrieking orders at each other, blood spurting in all directions, and doctors making love to nurses in the on-call rooms.
But it was nothing like on TV. We went through triage quickly and were assigned to a corner room. A nurse wandered in, checked Jonah’s pulse, drew some blood, then wandered off again without a word. An hour and a half went by. Five more pulse checks. Jonah’s mom and I sat silently and watched the door, waiting for someone to come in to talk to us. Jonah lay absolutely still; he hadn’t moved since they’d brought him into the room. I tried to speak to him once, but he opened his eyes briefly and hissed, “Don’t say anything in here. They’re listening.” Then he shut his eyes again.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, a tall young woman came in. She leaned over Jonah’s bed for a moment and then flipped quickly through his chart. “I’m Dr. Wilde, the attending emergency physician,” she said, addressing the clipboard in her hand. “I understand that Jonah has been having some behavioral trouble? Can you tell me what happened today?”
Behavioral trouble? Is that how she described this? Like calling out in class and throwing spitballs?
“Well, it’s been going on for a while,” Mrs. Golden told her in an apologetic voice. “I was worried about depression at first. Or drugs. But I’m not sure what’s going on with him now.”
Dr. Wilde was still looking at her chart. “I see his blood tests were normal. Drug and alcohol screen was negative.” She appeared disappointed by the results. “So has he seen a doctor about this?”
“Yes, we took him to the pediatrician last week. Dr. Steiner said—” Mrs. Golden hesitated and glanced over at Jonah. “He said that he was worried about psychosis,” she finished in a lower tone. “But I didn’t believe him—”
“Hold on,” the doctor interrupted. “Hold on. His pediatrician was worried that Jonah was hallucinating?”
“That’s what he said.”
“You’re telling me that he suspected that his patient was psychotic and yet he didn’t call anyone in?” the doctor demanded. “Social work? A psychiatrist?”
Mrs. Golden shook her head. “We didn’t really give him a chance. I’m sorry, Doctor, I thought that we could deal with this at home. I never thought I’d end up calling the police on my own son.”
Dr. Wilde had opened her mouth to answer when she was interrupted by a high-pitched yell and a clatter from the bed. Jonah had opened his eyes and was pulling furiously at the wrist restraints that bound him to the bed. “You called the police on me?” he shouted at his mother. “It was you?”
The doctor jumped back in surprise and began flipping through her chart again. “What is going on here?” she muttered angrily. “They told me that they restrained and sedated him!”
Jonah was thrashing about and screaming; his mom ran over to his side. “Jonah, I’m sorry! I didn’t know what was going on! April’s friend called and told me that somebody was robbing our home. I didn’t call the cops on you. I thought you were in danger. Baby, listen to me—”
That was the end of Dr. Wilde’s evaluation. I think she found out everything she wanted to know about Jonah during the time it took the nurse to draw up and inject the sedative into his IV.
Jonah stopped yelling at his mother and fixed his burning eyes on the doctor, who was standing quietly by the door. “I know what you’re going to do to me!” he shrieked at her. “You’re going to pump me full of pills. And then you’re going to plant a probe inside of me and rape my brain with your machines and replace my thoughts. But I won’t let you! I’m going to fight you! I know exactly who you are and who you work for! I have a surprise for you, Doc! Dr. Wilde, right? You said your name was Dr. Wilde? Are you really wild, Doctor? Are you a party girl? Do you like getting wasted at parties? Be careful about those frat boys. They have rape pills, Doctor. Frat boys are wild too, aren’t they? They never call you the next day, right? That’s what happens when you’re wild, Doctor! What did you think would happen? You wait and wait and they never come. You know what that feels like, right? To wait and wait for your friend forever and he never comes. Because he’s abandoned you! You know exactly what I’m saying, Dr. Wilde. I can smell the guilt coming from your face. You were there with him, weren’t you? You know what happened. You watched it happen, didn’t you? Didn’t you? Answer me!”
The doctor didn’t say a word. She stood over Jonah with crossed arms as the nurse administered the antipsychotic. The fluid had barely left the syringe when Jonah sank weakly against his pillow and turned his face to me. “I told you this would happen,” he whimpered. “I knew what they would do. But you promised me you wouldn’t let them. April, you promised me—”
The medicine swallowed up the rest.
Twelve hours, thirty vital checks, two nurses, four medical students, and three doctors later, Mrs. Golden signed Jonah’s admission papers, and he was transferred to the adolescent psychiatry unit at Shady Grove Hospital.