Saturday, March 26, 2011

Spendin' the day in the ER

So I'm sitting in the emergency room, waiting for my husband to get x-rays. Of course it's a beautiful, sunny day outside. When is it ever a crappy, rainy day when you have to spend it in the ER?

We had no intention of being here today, but my husband fell really hard last night, probably breaking a rib. He tried to tough it out because really, what can you do for a broken rib? Finally, the pain got to be too much. We tried to go to an urgent care facility today, just to get an x-ray and some pain meds, but now they're worried about what's going on in his head, so here we are.

My husband has been shipped off to CT/x-ray land somewhere and will probably not be back for a while. Having anticipated this scenario, I grabbed my netbook when we left the house to get some writing done. We've spent almost three hours in two medical facilities and we have yet to get a diagnosis. Looks like I'll have plenty of time to write.

Surprisingly, the ER has been pretty time-efficient. The urgent care facility was the time eater. I'm glad his need for care wasn't actually urgent when we went there. We were the only ones in the place besides the employees and it took for-EVER to see a doctor. Then, after five minutes in the examining room, the doctor decided they didn't have the capacity to treat him, so here we are. When the ER triage unit indicated head trauma, my husband got fast-tracked, but it turns out there are a lot of steps in the fast-track process. So I wait.

This just in - we have a broken rib. The doctor came looking for my husband, but he's not back yet. Where could he be? He left for an x-ray at least 45 minutes ago, and the results are already back! I found out that there is nothing they can do for him except to give him some pain meds. The urgent care place had an x-ray machine and the doctor had a prescription pad - what was it that they didn't have the capacity for? Well, we still have to find out if there is head trauma, so...

More later.

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