The ER is not nearly as entertaining as it appears on TV.

Last night was movie night. As with other movie nights, I got dinner ready -- sat down down on the floor in front of the TV with dinner, a pillow, and the cat and started my movie. It was another Kevin Spacey flick -- The Negotiator. Kevin Spacey is so hot and such a perfect actor -- have I mentioned that?

Anyway, about 30 minutes before the end -- when the movie is climaxing, my phone rings. "Hey Karen, can you take me to the hospital, I can't drive." This is somewhere around 8:30.

So I pick her up and we go to Huntsville Hospital. The waiting room is PACKED and the nurse is making announcements that half of the ER is serving as admissions for the upstairs and they're honestly trying to see everyone as soon as possible. Oh, that's bad. So we go to Crestwoods ER. This was at 9. She finally gets seen at 1am... 4 hours later. And what do they do? Nothing. They write her some prescriptions and send her home. Nice -- that was REALLY worth it.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

when you're not breathing or bleeding profusely, they do get you in pretty quick. It's that whole triage system that makes people wait if they aren't at risk of immediate death. The only time I went to the ER was when my throat closed, and I was in a bed pretty damn quick.

8:46 AM  
Blogger Karen said...

Oh, I know. I'm just griping about the wait and the bordom of staring at the wall for hours. I'm sure the doctors were working their butts off to see everybody (though the nurses certainly weren't).

The only times I've been to the ER for myself were when I was little and in a bike accident and then again when I was in my car wreck.

2:34 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

fair enough. I just know way too many ppl who bitch about the ER wait when they're not actually dying. Like I said, each time I've been in with something serious, we got right in. I've only been once for myself, but I've been a couple times with a variety of boyfriends. Most of the time, we waited a long time (thanks wussy boyfriend who just had to go to the ER), but the one time my first boyfriend cracked his head open on a tetherball pole (while playing frisbee), we got in immediately.

11:31 PM  
Blogger Karen said...

Though I will point out that the ugly scare on my lip is the result of bad emergency care. I went to the ER and they didn't think I need to be seen immediatly. When I finally was seen, they realized that my injury was much worse that it appeared and they had waited too long to treat it properly. Hence the ugly scar.

And no, I'm not making that up -- they told me flat out that they waited too long and I should have eben seen sooner.

Though I have much respect for doctors and hospitals and I don't do something like going to the ER if I feel it can wait. Hell, everyone I know lectured me on the fact that I should have gone to the ER when my hives were making my throat swell and I was having trouble breathing. But after I popped like 10 antihistamines it got slightly better and I just went to the doctor early the next morning. I survived.

If you ask me, 80% of people in the ER don't need to be in there. Period. Maybe it's just my part of the country, but most of them are low class trash -- the kind that will have a baby at 14 as a career choice. It infuriates me.

11:56 PM  

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