Saturday, June 10, 2006
Pain + Emergency room = 1 day lost
Amy's back pain issue came to a head last night as she came into the living room with a look of total panic on her face. Eyes wide and searching, her teeth working her bottom lip and the wringing of her hands. Amy had had her fill of pain. So, today I called the on-call doctor down to UW Hospitals and he basically said, 'Listen, Amy's on about as strong a medicine as we are going to give her without seeing her, so she can either come down to the ER, or wait until her appointment this coming Tuesday.' She thought about it for awhile and I asked her if she really felt like she could tolerate the pain and missed sleep for 3 plus days? I had to run a few errands, but we were on the road headed for the ER by 12:00 noon.
Now, I really don't want to be a complainer, but when I think of the Emergency Room, I think of nurses and doctors rushing around helping the people who came in because they needed immediate help...well, I guess the mental picture of my expectations was a bit off base because we waited nearly two hours before we ushered back to a room where Amy was asked to undress and slip into one of those VERY attractive hospital gowns (you know, the ones with the built in air-conditioning) and lay down on the bed. She complied and we waited another hour before a nurse came in and took some vitals, asked a few non-treatment realated questions (like, and I kid you not, Are you in danger at home!) and was off. About a half hour later, the surgical resident who initially told Amy to come down or wait until Tuesday, stepped in asked her about her pain, poked her a few times and ordered up some blood work. Another half hour later, a nurse comes in to take the blood sample, discovers she doesn't have the equipment she needs and leaves. About 25 minutes later, she comes back in, takes the blood sample and leaves. About two hours later (no one else has stopped by), I step out to the nurses station and tell them that we've been waiting for two hours on the results of Amy's blood tests and could they please check to see if they're back yet, the nurse tells me that she'll look into it. About 15 minutes later the ER doc stops by and tries to explain how busy they are by asking if either of us remember the Ed Sullivan show and that there was a performer on there that would balance plates on poles by spinning them and he'd have to keep running from pole to pole and keep spinning the plates to keep them from crashing to the floor. Well, he kind of felt like that guy because he was running from room to room making sure each patient was taken care of...yeah, well anyway the surgical resident comes in and tells us that the blood tests show that Amy's white blood cell count is high (normal is 5000, Amy's was 13,600), but they are comfused because she doesn't show any of the signs of infection, so he want's to run the numbers by Amy's surgeon and leaves the room. A different nurse comes in about an hour later and asks if Amy has given a urine sample, she hadn't, so the nurse takes her and gets the sample. About this time, I start to lose my sense of time as both of us drift off and on to sleep. Finally about 8:40pm, the surgical resident comes in and informs Amy that she has a urinary tract infection. He prescribes an antibiotic and at 9:20pm, after about 8.5 hours, we leave the hospital.
We are VERY thankful that they were able to get to the bottom of Amy's back pain and are hopeful that she'll see fast results via the medicine.
This is Amy's story as seen and told by me - V
Now, I really don't want to be a complainer, but when I think of the Emergency Room, I think of nurses and doctors rushing around helping the people who came in because they needed immediate help...well, I guess the mental picture of my expectations was a bit off base because we waited nearly two hours before we ushered back to a room where Amy was asked to undress and slip into one of those VERY attractive hospital gowns (you know, the ones with the built in air-conditioning) and lay down on the bed. She complied and we waited another hour before a nurse came in and took some vitals, asked a few non-treatment realated questions (like, and I kid you not, Are you in danger at home!) and was off. About a half hour later, the surgical resident who initially told Amy to come down or wait until Tuesday, stepped in asked her about her pain, poked her a few times and ordered up some blood work. Another half hour later, a nurse comes in to take the blood sample, discovers she doesn't have the equipment she needs and leaves. About 25 minutes later, she comes back in, takes the blood sample and leaves. About two hours later (no one else has stopped by), I step out to the nurses station and tell them that we've been waiting for two hours on the results of Amy's blood tests and could they please check to see if they're back yet, the nurse tells me that she'll look into it. About 15 minutes later the ER doc stops by and tries to explain how busy they are by asking if either of us remember the Ed Sullivan show and that there was a performer on there that would balance plates on poles by spinning them and he'd have to keep running from pole to pole and keep spinning the plates to keep them from crashing to the floor. Well, he kind of felt like that guy because he was running from room to room making sure each patient was taken care of...yeah, well anyway the surgical resident comes in and tells us that the blood tests show that Amy's white blood cell count is high (normal is 5000, Amy's was 13,600), but they are comfused because she doesn't show any of the signs of infection, so he want's to run the numbers by Amy's surgeon and leaves the room. A different nurse comes in about an hour later and asks if Amy has given a urine sample, she hadn't, so the nurse takes her and gets the sample. About this time, I start to lose my sense of time as both of us drift off and on to sleep. Finally about 8:40pm, the surgical resident comes in and informs Amy that she has a urinary tract infection. He prescribes an antibiotic and at 9:20pm, after about 8.5 hours, we leave the hospital.
We are VERY thankful that they were able to get to the bottom of Amy's back pain and are hopeful that she'll see fast results via the medicine.
This is Amy's story as seen and told by me - V
# posted by Vince @ 10:49 PM 
