Carpe Datum

ER

Two nights ago, about about 330 in the morning, I woke up to M*chelle wracked with pain somewhere in her guts. Scared the hell out of both of us. I didn't know if it was her appendix or a kidney stone or what, but it was extremely painful for her. By about 4am, I had convinced her that we should err on the side of caution and go to the ER.

There are two ER's I was considering. There's a downtown ER that we have been to a few times before. There's often a good wait there, but they will see people quickly if they are in a lot of pain. You have to wait if you are coming to get antibiotics for a cold or something. There's also a relatively new branch hospital near us, maybe five minutes closer, so I decided to go there.

I walked in to the ER lobby and two receptionists were chatting. They stopped after a second or two and looked at me. I said, "My wife is out there in the car writhing in pain, something in her abdomen, and we're not sure what to do."

They looked at me blankly like I had just recited Maxwell's Equations to them or derived the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus. Finally, the one nearest me spoke, "Ok, well, bring her on in and we'll get her checked in."

Am I stupid for expecting them to have an orderly or something to go out there and help her into a wheelchair? For there to be a triage nurse at the front desk to come out and see what's going on? I don't know, so I wheel her in, and they take their time checking us in and getting all of our information as though we were here for a check-up at 430am. After that's all done, we get to see our first medical professional, the triage nurse.

She asks several questions, starts a history and a chart, takes blood pressure and pulse and then hands us off to someone who leads us down a quiet, deserted hallway to one of the rooms. There doesn't seem to be any activity here, no people roaming the halls, no noise really at all, so I figure it is a quiet night and we'll be seen quickly.

430am becomes 515am, and M*chelle has changed into a hospital gown, peed in a cup (very dark, probably blood) and generally writhed in pain on the bed for 30 minutes. The nurse comes in and offers to put in an IV for pain control. M*chelle won't have any of that. I explained to the nurse that M*chelle didn't even get pain meds for giving birth, she's so afraid of needles.

Ok, the nurse leaves with a weird expression on her face, but then THIRTY MORE MINUTES PASS and nothing happens. We first arrived at 430am with my wife in excruciating pain and it is now 545am. Fortunately, the pain has been gradually getting better for her, and to be fair, the hospital did offer morphine while she waited, after being there for about 45 minutes.

I go down the hall to the nurse's station and very respectfully ask what the delay is. The nurse explains that a new doctor is due to come on shift at 6am, and we'll be seen after that. The doctor on the night shift didn't want to start a new patient so close to the end of the night (this would've been at 445am after we were checked in), and so in the interest of continuous care, they decided to wait for the shift change.

I was dumbstruck.

Seriously, what the fuck?

I said, "That sounds kinda silly. We've been waiting for an hour because we are waiting for a shift change? Isn't this the emergency room?" At least, that's what should've come out of my mouth. Instead, I said, "So we'll be seen at 6, is that what you're saying?"

She said that we would be seen after the doctor comes on at six.

I (really) said, "I don't mean to be difficult here, but we've been here over an hour, and as I've said to you already, my wife is pretty freaked out by hospitals. It is an indication of how much pain she's in that she's even here. I really hope she is seen soon, because otherwise, I think we're going to leave."

The nurse said, "It's just ten more minutes before six. Please try to stay, and the doctor will be here."

So I went back to the room and we waited while nothing happened until 605am. I walked back down to the nurse's station and said, "Ok, what do we have to sign or do to leave? We're not waiting any longer. I gave you ten minutes and then another five on top of that."

She said, "I only said you would be seen after the doctor got on shift, I can't control when he comes to see you. If you leave, it will not be in your best interests. It will be against medical advice."

I said, "I appreciate that. We're leaving. Please do what you need to do or tell who you need to tell."

She came down to the room and had Michelle sign a paper that said we were leaving against medical advice. I said, "Do we get to know the results of the urine test?"

The nurse said, "No, only the doctor can discuss that with you."

M*chelle and I were both thinking (but didn't say), "Oh, so you can start an IV with morphine and order M*chelle not to drink any water, but we need a doctor her to talk to her about her pee?" M*chelle signed the paper and by 610, we were out the door. The pain had gotten more manageable, and M*chelle was able to sleep again once we were home.

She went to her regular doctor in the morning and had a urine sample done in about 15 minutes total. She has some kind of infection in her bladder or urinary tract or something. She may have passed a small kidney stone. Hard to say, but now she's on antibiotics, and they're waiting on lab results for more information about the infection, and she hasn't had any pain since then (nearly 48 hours now).

I'm hoping the little hospital we went to contacts us at some point about billing so that we can ask who to talk to about evaluating what went on there. I can't wait for them to try to bill us for the urine test. I'll say, "Oh, sure I'll pay it if you can tell me the results, which we never got BECAUSE WE WAITED 90 MINUTES IN AN ER ROOM DURING A DEAD TIME OF INACTIVITY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND NEVER SAW A DOCTOR." It would be nice if someone were held accountable. At least we'll never return to that ER.

Posted by Observer at April 29, 2008 09:55 PM