When I first discovered that my local ER is a surrogate day spa for mothers, I had one kid on the ground and one on the way. A migraine socked me while I was scrubbing the breakfast dishes, and had it not been for my recently having graduated from IV therapy to treat excessive prenatal vomiting, or that the headache intermittently produced, in my range of vision, a cartoonish halo of winking stars, I would have popped an OB/GYN-approved pain killer, drawn the blinds and laid my bones on a bed. But the headache plus my first child, a toddler who had not stopped caterwauling since my husband wheeled us out of the maternity ward a year and half before, warranted a trip, and after dropping my son at a friend's place, I made the short trek to the hospital.
Apart from a 20-something sleeveless flannel junkie, arm-in-sling, trying to work a cell phone, and a ceiling- mounted TV tuned to Everybody Loves Raymond, the waiting room, like a spa's, was relatively quiet. All I had to do was sit — a rare luxury. Then the doctor called me in. An unassuming middle-aged man in wire-frame bifocals, the kind my father wore in 1980, he introduced himself by shaking my hand and addressing me as "Ms." He repeatedly laid a reassuring, warm hand on my forearm, helped me to the examination stretcher — not unlike an esthetician's treatment chair — and gently asked me what was the matter, listening as intently as a seasoned massage therapist. "You need a bag," he soothed: he meant an IV bag of electrolyte solution. Then a young, athletic nurse came in and hooked me up. As the fluid flowed in, I lay beneath pre-warmed blankets, sipping from the apple-juice box an orderly had brought. When the nurse dimmed lights and exited the room, I half expected to hear melancholic strains of Windham Hill waft in. She'd laid a few women's magazines on my lap, which boasted such articles as how to cultivate a complete herb garden in a kitchen window, how to "bake" raw sesame flatbread in a dehydrator and how to fire up your man's sex drive homeopathically. The pages were badly dog-eared, and I wondered if any of the previous readers had, like me, gotten a bag, and if the doctor had called them "Ms." As the IV dripped, I resolved to sprout rosemary on all our south-facing windowsills, to purchase a dehydrator on eBay for raw "cooking," and maybe, to indulge my hubby's libido. Pretty soon, I dozed off and the headache waned. I'd never felt so refreshed in my life.
For several weeks after that, my thoughts constantly looped back to the ER. Toddler whining? The bag. Anxieties peaking? The bag. The vexing sense I'd relinquished everything for — laundry? The bag. Soon I began to wonder: what mommy wouldn't want a bag — and at the ER, which, all told, is as relaxing as a day at the spa? Take, for instance, the team of pleasantly uniformed, professional specialists anticipating your every desire, and using only their best inside voices. The impeccable attention to detail, from adjusting the bed just-so to taking repeated temperatures to writing generous prescriptions for your post-visit care. The technicians' silent rubber-soled shoes, which, unlike a child's frenetic footsteps, fall noiselessly along the corridors. The careful diagnoses; the appropriate custom remedies. Even the soft hospital gowns, which, though a far cry from Euro terry spa robes, simply appear.
And for some of the same reasons mothers book spa getaways, they may as well seek urgent care at the ER. Sleep deprivation. Multiple injuries sustained by repeated "chick pecking," or being trampled, jostled, and jabbed by miniature knees, shoes and elbows (baby fat — what's that?). Noise torture, or an infant's incessant screaming (tapes of which, I recently read, are used on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay), I'm-going-to-get-Medea-on-you freak outs, generally spurred by the above plus too much coffee, plus potent anti-depressant cocktail prescribed for the "baby blues," plus husband who often and offhandedly claims to be "totally freakin' ecstatic," presumably because of the birth of his progeny, and, who, turned on by this, is ever primed to bone. Then, of course, there are the children themselves, ever hollering "Wipe me!" and developing suspicious rashes and tubercular coughs, often at "bedtime," that is, anytime between dinner and breakfast — the very Sisyphean quality of which could, as my friend Sarah often jokes, send one running for any nearby mental rehabilitation center. So why not the ER?
The next time I hit the ER, two years later, a broken finger took me in, which I'd snapped flying down the fastest slide in Ridgefield with my two boys. But this time, rather than calling a friend to babysit and having to worry about getting back, I fed the kids dinner, read them The Tale of Jeremy Fisher and waited for my husband to come home to start their bath. When he arrived, I kissed him bye. "Where are you headed?" he said. "The ER," I said. "Don't wait up."
After ushering me past the triage area, the hushed, curtained-off treatment cubicles, and back to my own private room, the admitting nurse again burritoed me in those oh-so-tasty pre-warmed ER blankets. Again, she handed me a stack of magazines. But this time, rather than a juice box, a Dixie cup of ice chips materialized. One Proustian crunch, and all the high points of my most recent hospital experience rushed in: my latest maternity stay, which included a round-the-clock assortment of juices (from plastic gallon jugs, though my memory insists fresh-squeezed). A stainless steel bassinet on wheels, which I could deposit, with pissed-off, screaming baby inside, in a sound-proof nursery. Pristine bed sheets, which I never had to bleach or change and which were, appropriately, tucked impeccably into taut hospital corners. Lactation consultants who sported lipstick and Birkenstocks and who gently parted my hospital gown to gaze admiringly at my breasts. Cold packs and hot compresses and motherly nurses and cafeteria workers who coaxed me to order heaps of scrambled eggs, buttered bagels and extra packets of jam. So this whole place was paradise, from the heights of the maternity ward to the bowels of the ER.
A physician's assistant came in to inspect my finger. Outside, spring rain battered just-budding trees. But inside this windowless ER, my injury, my demanding toddlers, became nothing but a receding interlude, presently supplanted by a searing desire to stay. Especially when a fresh-faced orderly appeared and insisted that he actually wheel me to X-ray. "It's just a broken finger," I said, kicking off the blankets. "Let's not take any chances," he said, pulling them back over me. My greatest lament: that the ER wasn't hopping that night, which meant I'd be treated, and therefore discharged, far too soon. That, and that I hadn't thought to bring a book.
I've been back a couple times since those initial visits, once for another migraine, and once to have a wood particle removed from my right eye, which I got from a pulpy all-natural tissue while teaching my two-year-old how to blow his nose. Each time I've learned more about the ER's restorative attributes. And each time I've wondered why I haven't availed myself of them more often. Sure, the place could really use a child care center. And an oxygenating facial wouldn't hurt. But then again, you don't have to tip. And you don't need an appointment.