the Hearbreak of Suburbia

[the_siobhan]

I hate hospital emergency rooms. Hate them, hate them, hate hate hate.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware that they are a necessity. In fact I think they are a great system if a person is in urgent, immediate, life-threatening need. Definitely the place I want to be if I have a heart attack, or get into a horrible car accident or immediately after being chased naked out of a third-story window by a jealous husband.

But if you have something that isn't immediately life-threatening wrong with you, boy howdy do they blow chunks.

I went to emerg on Monday morning. It was totally my doctor's idea. Her logic is that if the pain is bad enough that it won't respond to over-the-counter medication, I should go to the hospital where the surgeon works and it might actually me get scheduled for surgery faster than if I continue to just tough it out. (My doctor went through the whole adenomyosis thing with me, so she knows how hospital-avoidant[1] I am.)

I had to admit that there was some logic to her argument. If whether or not I went to the hospital is a measure of severity in the mind of the person asking the question; then I want to be able to say yes even if the more accurate answer is, "Only if I were actually in the process of dying and couldn't figure out a way to rig up a sufficient life support mechanism to keep me going until the walk-in clinic opens."

So I had the usual throb-throb-THROB-throb going on for most of last week. On Sunday night it started to get less throbby and more stabby. At 2 AM I took my usual handful of painkillers. At 4 AM I woke Axel up and asked him to take me to the hospital.

My first reaction when I walked into the place was that my gallbladder had actually done me a favour in it's timing. This particular hospital is in a fairly quiet neighbourhood and the time between pub-letting-out and morning-commute is usually the quietest shift on the clock anyway. There was one triage nurse killing time by having a conversation with some of the other staff who waved me over to her desk to take my information. There were fewer than a half-dozen other people dozing on the waiting room chairs or stretched out on gurneys. And it continued to be quiet all night. In the entire time I was there only two other people come in, and one of them was just as I was leaving.

And I honestly have no frigging' idea why I didn't get to see a doctor. In the (two? three?) hours I was there I saw exactly one person called in from the waiting room and one person discharged. The guy who came in after me might very well have been bumped ahead of me in line, but that would have moved me down the priority list by exactly well, one.

Maybe their were hidden rows of examining rooms full of people behind doors I couldn't see, and secret passages where staff were running about sequestered from view. Maybe the entire medical team had been taken out by Norwalk virus. All I can do is compare it to the uncountable number of the emergency rooms I've been to in the past, almost always in busy downtown hospitals. And when they're getting slammed you know it. People are constantly moving in and out; patients, family members, support staff, cops, paramedics. Even if it was hours before I actually saw a real live doctor, there was a constant ebb and flow of human traffic. At the very least I can measure the creep of progress by the people who are pulled out of the waiting room. The only traffic I saw on Monday morning was one guy getting up to stretch his legs and Axel buying the world's scariest looking sandwich out of the vending machine. And the giant minute hand on the big white clock s-o-o-o sl-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-owly reminding me how long I had already been sitting there.

At 8 AM I burst into tears all over the triage nurse and begged Axel to take me back home again.

Then I phoned up the surgeon's receptionist and literally pleaded with her to get me an earlier appointment. She promised to squeeze me in before the other patients Monday morning if I show up early. I'm half-tempted to bring her some flowers.


[1] Less sensitive people call me stubborn.

Comments

[eveofdstruction.livejournal.com]

ugh. That sucks. I am really glad the surgeon is squeezing you in. This shit has to stop. <3

[greylock.livejournal.com]

Man. That's pretty bad.

Good luck on Monday.

[ashbet]

Shit, honey, I'm so sorry :/

Glad they're seeing you on Monday. Hope this can get taken care of soon.

**hugs**

-- A <3

[beaq.livejournal.com]

When my sweetie had an acute gall bladder attack on a Friday night, they didn't seem super busy, for a Friday, but we waited a few hours before they got him at least lying down. Then they wheeled him into a room, where they gave him demerol and we waited for someone to see us. This was at approximately 2 in the morning. At around 8, after I'd accidentally fallen asleep, I went out to see what was going on. Apparently, they had gone off shift and simply forgotten him.

[beaq.livejournal.com]

Which is to say, I'm glad you got an appointment. Someone has you WRITTEN DOWN!

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

That is unforgiveable.

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

What a load of absolute crap. "oh, she's not bleeding out the ass; we can ignore her"

Glad you've got an actual time to see the surgeon, and hopefully he pays attention and schedules you for surgery. You shouldn't be having to deal with that kind of pain.

{{{hugs}}}

[nicklausse.livejournal.com]

Gall bladder divorce soooooon! <3

Once they _tried_ to leave me sitting there with a full bladder and no ability to pee (from post-surgical swelling.) I imagine this is what your eve was like? GAH SUCKAGE.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I should have a divorce party. French fries for everybody!

[tamago23.livejournal.com]

Sounds like Sunnybrook. They always have hideously slow service at night, even though you never see anyone actually being processed, and it seems like all the staff there are sitting around with their thumbs up their asses.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I've never been to Sunnybrook, fortunately.

This was at East General. It's been almost exactly 3 decades since the last time I was in their emergency department, so I have no idea if that's typical or just a weird night.

My of my more recent experiences have been at Toronto Western. Now that's a busy hospital.

[tamago23.livejournal.com]

Oh god, East General. That was the one hospital that I refused to work at back when I was a doula. Or as an old friend of mine once put it, "If I got into a horrific accident on the steps of Toronto East General, I'd call an ambulance to take me somewhere else."

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Ah. I was kinda hoping my experience was an anomalie.

I had my tubal and my hysterctomy there, and I have absolutely no complaints about the level of care I received as a patient with a scheduled procedure. I'll have to be desperate before I ever try their emergency room again.

[elixxir.livejournal.com]

That is so awful. I'm sorry and here's hoping the surgeon can help PRONTO!

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Jesus, that's slacktastic. What hospital were you at? St. Joe's?

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

East General.

Not only sucktastic, but an hour drive home to my heavy duty not-medically-recommended backup painkillers.

[sloot.livejournal.com]

Ontario's health care works when you're dying.

If you're in pain, it's a fucker to push through.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we need some kind of intermediate care between maintenance and acute. We don't seem to have anything in that gap.

[ash-pixie.livejournal.com]

Was it St. Joes? They have multiple waiting rooms. Once you move from room one you're either sent to the children's waiting room or the adults/psych waiting room (they're designated for Children and Psych for the area so they had to come up with a way to keep the kids from being traumatized). I waited there once for 6 hours with ACID on my face--good thing I'd found a neutralizer on the job site before I went in or I would be scared. I actually prefer to go downtown to Mt. Sinai vs. go to St. Joes--and I used to volunteer there!!

Glad to hear you managed to swing an appointment Monday. Good luck!!

[inulro.livejournal.com]

Maybe their were hidden rows of examining rooms full of people behind doors I couldn't see

Possibly. My one and only experience of the ER was in Manchester, 8:30 pm, Saturday night. The first glassings of the evening were just coming in. I spent two minutes in the waiting room and then they gave me my own exam room to wait in (on account of being actually sick & wanting to keep me away from the drunk people).

I was still in and out within an hour, drugs in hand.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Glassings are a regular happening in Manchester?

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Separate exam rooms are the standard in all the hospitals I've been in, but you usually see people going in and out of them at some point.

[girfan.livejournal.com]

I hope your appointment on Monday brings results!

I've been in an ER/A&E a few times (US and UK) and was seen quickly every time. Don't know if I was lucky, or if the staff was excellent or both.

[liz-lowlife.livejournal.com]

My fingers are crossed for you for Monday, beautiful. X

[miss-bontemps.livejournal.com]

honestly, what the fuck?

[ravensee.livejournal.com]

[1] Less sensitive people call me stubborn.

You have a case of that too? Ha. Me too.

I hope everything goes well on Monday.