Hospitals Suck
Last weekend I was feeling the familiar pains of a condition that I and many others have called Divroticulatus (if the spelling is wrong.. deal with it). So big plan for Monday is go in to see my doctor, get some antibotics, pain pills and take a few days off. This is the same thing that happened 2 years ago so I was familiar with the process. I get in to see my doctor monday night and he agrees that I have what I say I have, so I am thinking perscription for antibiotics, pain pills and take a few days off. NO.. he wants me to go to the emergency room "just in case". I don't really agree but I figure that I will go. I arrive at the emergency room thinking they will see that what I have is what I say I have. Laying there in the nice paper dress they provided freezing my yams off I am thinking "the specialist will see what I have and say here are some antibiotics, pain pills and a couple days off" NO.. this guy wants me to spend the night and orders a battery of tests for something that I already know that I have !!! Is this guy trying to pay off his boat??? I finally agree to spend the night much to the dismay of my 9 month pregnant wife who could be in the bed next to me at any time. Needless to say the experience was utter hell. Arrive at the emergency room at 7:30pm, finally get to the room by 10:30pm (needless to say most of that time sitting in that paper dress and with no pain medication). When I get into the room I am thinking I'll get my pain med, and sleep until the morning. NO...they want to give me a CT scan right away before I go to sleep. So I figured fine, get it out of the way. So I drink the white chalky crap getting ready for my "test". Then the nurse informs me that they are backed up at the CT machine and it might be a while. BE A WHILE !!! It's 2:00am on a tuesday morning. Who the hell else would need a CT scan at that time. Fine.. finally 3:30 in the morning I am pushed down to the scan room by my nurse WHO DOESN'T KNOW WHERE THE CT ROOM IS, it's not her first day there, and she isn't a temp, it's that she has other people do that for her. Nothing more embarassing that sitting in a wheelchair (in my paper dress) with my IV post thingy between my legs and the nurse asking everyone she runs into if they know where she is going. At this point I am getting ready to say "give me antibiotics, pain pills, and I will take a few days off !!" Fine.. back to the room at 4:30am and I am thinking NOW by the grace of God I can get some rest. OH have I mentioned that the guy next to me requires a nurse to sit next to his bed 24 hours a days for some unknown reason. And by the looks of this guy I really didn't want to know. So guy snoring, TV's on, nurse next to him is the most popular person on the floor and gets FREQUENT visitors , and the hallway is the center of activity for EVERYONES call button dings that takes on average of 4 minutes to answer and turn off. At this point I really don't give a flying (you know), all i know is that I have the little machine next to me with the "magic button". I know how this bad boy works, feel a little pain, push the button, good feeling comes over you, you are knocked out for hours. COOL. I settle in and prepare myslef. I push the "magic button" waiting for the good feeling and nothing happens. I start pushing that button like I was playing the old atari 2600, and not much happened. I layed there watching the hours pass by and the sun finally come up. Somewhere I must have dozed off for an hour maybe two. My mother shows up in the morning to see how I am doing, and we basicly sit there watch TV, and I get to go to the bathroom dragging my little IV post with me around the nurse du jour sitting next to the guy next to me. Finally, a doctor shows up by noon (had to get 18 holes in before rounds I guess), and tell me I have Divrotiulitus and I say "no s**t sherlock" and tells me he would like me to stay another day. At that point I am not sure if it was the look on my face where I was going to rip out his throat or the clenched fists, but the doctor finally said that maybe that staying another day wasn't necessary. SO GUESS WHAT HE RECOMMENDED... ANTIBIOTICS, PAIN PILLS AND A FEW DAYS OFF!! I almost came unglued, but I was too exhausted.
Thats not the end of the story... at this point the doctor said he would write up some perscriptions and I am free to go. So my mother, figuring it would take a little while, decides to run my car home and get a ride back to pick me up so we wouldn't have to shuffle cars around. I get dressed at the speed of light and wait for her return, and wait, and wait. An hour and a half later I am thinking that it should take a total of 20 minutes to go home and come back. Did she get into a wreck? Another 15 minutes my wife comes into the room and informs me that my mother got home and decided to have lunch and do a few things around the house. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? Yeah I was have a blast at camp no sleep. Finally home and in the comfy chair. Part of the doctors requirement is liquid diet for another 24 hours. SO.. 24 hours with no food and water, another 24 hours of just clear liquids, by noon on the third day I was ready to do some serious damage to the pantry.
Last weekend I was feeling the familiar pains of a condition that I and many others have called Divroticulatus (if the spelling is wrong.. deal with it). So big plan for Monday is go in to see my doctor, get some antibotics, pain pills and take a few days off. This is the same thing that happened 2 years ago so I was familiar with the process. I get in to see my doctor monday night and he agrees that I have what I say I have, so I am thinking perscription for antibiotics, pain pills and take a few days off. NO.. he wants me to go to the emergency room "just in case". I don't really agree but I figure that I will go. I arrive at the emergency room thinking they will see that what I have is what I say I have. Laying there in the nice paper dress they provided freezing my yams off I am thinking "the specialist will see what I have and say here are some antibiotics, pain pills and a couple days off" NO.. this guy wants me to spend the night and orders a battery of tests for something that I already know that I have !!! Is this guy trying to pay off his boat??? I finally agree to spend the night much to the dismay of my 9 month pregnant wife who could be in the bed next to me at any time. Needless to say the experience was utter hell. Arrive at the emergency room at 7:30pm, finally get to the room by 10:30pm (needless to say most of that time sitting in that paper dress and with no pain medication). When I get into the room I am thinking I'll get my pain med, and sleep until the morning. NO...they want to give me a CT scan right away before I go to sleep. So I figured fine, get it out of the way. So I drink the white chalky crap getting ready for my "test". Then the nurse informs me that they are backed up at the CT machine and it might be a while. BE A WHILE !!! It's 2:00am on a tuesday morning. Who the hell else would need a CT scan at that time. Fine.. finally 3:30 in the morning I am pushed down to the scan room by my nurse WHO DOESN'T KNOW WHERE THE CT ROOM IS, it's not her first day there, and she isn't a temp, it's that she has other people do that for her. Nothing more embarassing that sitting in a wheelchair (in my paper dress) with my IV post thingy between my legs and the nurse asking everyone she runs into if they know where she is going. At this point I am getting ready to say "give me antibiotics, pain pills, and I will take a few days off !!" Fine.. back to the room at 4:30am and I am thinking NOW by the grace of God I can get some rest. OH have I mentioned that the guy next to me requires a nurse to sit next to his bed 24 hours a days for some unknown reason. And by the looks of this guy I really didn't want to know. So guy snoring, TV's on, nurse next to him is the most popular person on the floor and gets FREQUENT visitors , and the hallway is the center of activity for EVERYONES call button dings that takes on average of 4 minutes to answer and turn off. At this point I really don't give a flying (you know), all i know is that I have the little machine next to me with the "magic button". I know how this bad boy works, feel a little pain, push the button, good feeling comes over you, you are knocked out for hours. COOL. I settle in and prepare myslef. I push the "magic button" waiting for the good feeling and nothing happens. I start pushing that button like I was playing the old atari 2600, and not much happened. I layed there watching the hours pass by and the sun finally come up. Somewhere I must have dozed off for an hour maybe two. My mother shows up in the morning to see how I am doing, and we basicly sit there watch TV, and I get to go to the bathroom dragging my little IV post with me around the nurse du jour sitting next to the guy next to me. Finally, a doctor shows up by noon (had to get 18 holes in before rounds I guess), and tell me I have Divrotiulitus and I say "no s**t sherlock" and tells me he would like me to stay another day. At that point I am not sure if it was the look on my face where I was going to rip out his throat or the clenched fists, but the doctor finally said that maybe that staying another day wasn't necessary. SO GUESS WHAT HE RECOMMENDED... ANTIBIOTICS, PAIN PILLS AND A FEW DAYS OFF!! I almost came unglued, but I was too exhausted.
Thats not the end of the story... at this point the doctor said he would write up some perscriptions and I am free to go. So my mother, figuring it would take a little while, decides to run my car home and get a ride back to pick me up so we wouldn't have to shuffle cars around. I get dressed at the speed of light and wait for her return, and wait, and wait. An hour and a half later I am thinking that it should take a total of 20 minutes to go home and come back. Did she get into a wreck? Another 15 minutes my wife comes into the room and informs me that my mother got home and decided to have lunch and do a few things around the house. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? Yeah I was have a blast at camp no sleep. Finally home and in the comfy chair. Part of the doctors requirement is liquid diet for another 24 hours. SO.. 24 hours with no food and water, another 24 hours of just clear liquids, by noon on the third day I was ready to do some serious damage to the pantry.
1 comment:
First of all, I HATE blog spam.
Secondly... OH YEAH I hate hospitals! Every transaction takes an hour. It's like negotiating to buy a car or something. You wait two hours for a doctor, who's there 30 seconds, then he leaves, 15 minutes later a nurse, and you have to facilitate the communication between them "what did the doctor say?" At this point, I'd love to make something up since I've got a "wildcard." "Uh, he said I'll need as much HEROINE as I can carry" And it doesn't matter if they're going to get you a cup of water, it takes an hour. I remember having to wait in the EMERGENCY room while everyone did a GREAT job of looking like it wasn't their job. I remember saying to the person who finally showed up, "hey, didn't I walk under a big sign that said EMERGENCY to get in here?" I was wondering if there was a "SUPER-DUPER Emergency" room that I somehow missed where they actually get service. I wish I could puke whenever I wanted. I'd come out of the little curtain-room they store you in and just puke right in the hallway every 10 minutes just to keep them aware of me. Remember that scene from "Pay it Forward" where the gang member actually pulls out a gun, points it at the doctor and says "take care of them, right now!" I think we could all relate.
Redi-med is a waste of time. I took a sick person there one time who needed an anti-nausea shot and an IV to compensate for lost fluid. It was like a GD slumber party in there. When the girl who was supposedly "in charge" got done giggling with her friends, she looked at the patient like "ewww... she looks like she might throw up." Then casually mentions that they can't hook up IVs there, because they're completely useless apparently. So, off to the emergency room. I don't know how many times I drove someone to the emergency room, early in the evening, dinnertime, maybe and ended up standing in the parking lot at 2am leaving a voicemail for my boss that I wouldn't be in the next day until the afternoon. Oh, and lets not forget the super-patronizing nurses that talk to you like you're deaf, screaming the most cliche things and doing that really fake laugh. 6am: "SO DID YOU SLEEP WELL?" acting like they didn't just wake me up, even though they could have crept in and crept out without me ever knowing. I hate 'em, I reserve unrefined, yellowcake hatred for those kind of nurses.
...now the one that played Frogger with me was nice. She was pretty, too. I haven't had to stay in a hospital myself since '84, or whatever year that was when I had a kidney infection that made me pass out. Oh well, this is turning into my own blog.
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