Part of me was super chill about the experience, but another part of me was a complete basket case.
The emergency room is a horrible place. It wasn't my first time there, by any means, but after being there four days in a row, I am abhorred by it. We had so many issues, and the quality of care was shockingly poor. I can understand one bad hospital experience, but day after day of it really makes me concerned for humanity.
After going to the ER four times in four days, I started saying, "We've been to the ER more this week than I have been in my entire life!"
Then I started wondering if that was actually true, so I dug in the deep files of my mind to recall all my emergency room experiences.
My first visit to the ER was when I was a child. My nose started bleeding while we were camping, and it bled pretty consistently for about two days. My parents finally drove me down the mountain to a small town hospital. They talked about cauterizing it, but I don't think they ended up doing it. If they did, I've somehow blocked the memory of it. What they did do, for sure, was shove a tampon up my nostril where it remained for several days. When I had it removed, it felt like it was pulling my brain out with it (it was a wound tampon, so it didn't have a string. In fact, I don’t know if “tampon” would be the correct medical term for it, but it was totally a tampon. I had to have it removed by a doctor). I remember having nightmares about my nose tampon while it was in. I thrashed all through the night because I was uncomfortable and had a hard time breathing through one nostril. I was instructed to keep the tampon moist, so I had to squirt it with water from a syringe several times during the day.
Now I live the bloody nose lifestyle with my own son whose nose bleeds constantly. His has been cauterized, but the blood vessel is so large that the ENT said he would need to do it in the operating room under anesthesia to really get it to work. Nicky's nose has gotten a little better, though, so we haven't gone that route yet. No ER visits for Nicky's bloody noses, though. Our ENT instructed us to always call him first, and that has saved me from having to make the choice to go to the ER.
My next ER visit was when I was 14. I got a pain in my side while playing basketball. I thought it was a side ache, but it wouldn't go away. It got increasingly worse over several days. If I laughed, coughed, or even breathed wrong, the pain was excruciating. I knew I was going to die, so I wrote a will. I wanted to make sure my friend Michelle got my stereo. But my mom took me to the ER, so I didn't die after all. I had pleurisy, an infection in the lining of my lungs.
The next visit was for Nicky. He fell in a window well at a family party and hit his head. He threw up after, so we were worried he had a concussion. He ended up being fine (no concussion). In fact, they were more concerned about his nose, which was slightly swollen, than his head, and we hadn't even noticed his nose!
After that, I had two ER visits for myself in one week. I had some bizarre stroke-like symptoms, one of which was severe head pain. The first hospital treated me very poorly, so I declined some of their services and went home (after being there for four hours, the symptoms had mostly subsided). I threw up on the triage nurse while I was there. I don't even feel bad about it. The next hospital (one week later when the same symptoms hit again) was wonderful. They did a C/T scan and a spinal tap but didn't find anything wrong.
Then we had facial stitches for Nicky, Zoe, and Eva on three separate occasions.
And that brings me to a total of nine ER visits prior to Daisy's cellulitis. So that means my statement of being there more in one week than I'd been in my whole life was slightly inaccurate.
At any rate, I prefer to avoid the place altogether.
After going to the ER four times in four days, I started saying, "We've been to the ER more this week than I have been in my entire life!"
Then I started wondering if that was actually true, so I dug in the deep files of my mind to recall all my emergency room experiences.
My first visit to the ER was when I was a child. My nose started bleeding while we were camping, and it bled pretty consistently for about two days. My parents finally drove me down the mountain to a small town hospital. They talked about cauterizing it, but I don't think they ended up doing it. If they did, I've somehow blocked the memory of it. What they did do, for sure, was shove a tampon up my nostril where it remained for several days. When I had it removed, it felt like it was pulling my brain out with it (it was a wound tampon, so it didn't have a string. In fact, I don’t know if “tampon” would be the correct medical term for it, but it was totally a tampon. I had to have it removed by a doctor). I remember having nightmares about my nose tampon while it was in. I thrashed all through the night because I was uncomfortable and had a hard time breathing through one nostril. I was instructed to keep the tampon moist, so I had to squirt it with water from a syringe several times during the day.
Now I live the bloody nose lifestyle with my own son whose nose bleeds constantly. His has been cauterized, but the blood vessel is so large that the ENT said he would need to do it in the operating room under anesthesia to really get it to work. Nicky's nose has gotten a little better, though, so we haven't gone that route yet. No ER visits for Nicky's bloody noses, though. Our ENT instructed us to always call him first, and that has saved me from having to make the choice to go to the ER.
My next ER visit was when I was 14. I got a pain in my side while playing basketball. I thought it was a side ache, but it wouldn't go away. It got increasingly worse over several days. If I laughed, coughed, or even breathed wrong, the pain was excruciating. I knew I was going to die, so I wrote a will. I wanted to make sure my friend Michelle got my stereo. But my mom took me to the ER, so I didn't die after all. I had pleurisy, an infection in the lining of my lungs.
The next visit was for Nicky. He fell in a window well at a family party and hit his head. He threw up after, so we were worried he had a concussion. He ended up being fine (no concussion). In fact, they were more concerned about his nose, which was slightly swollen, than his head, and we hadn't even noticed his nose!
After that, I had two ER visits for myself in one week. I had some bizarre stroke-like symptoms, one of which was severe head pain. The first hospital treated me very poorly, so I declined some of their services and went home (after being there for four hours, the symptoms had mostly subsided). I threw up on the triage nurse while I was there. I don't even feel bad about it. The next hospital (one week later when the same symptoms hit again) was wonderful. They did a C/T scan and a spinal tap but didn't find anything wrong.
Then we had facial stitches for Nicky, Zoe, and Eva on three separate occasions.
And that brings me to a total of nine ER visits prior to Daisy's cellulitis. So that means my statement of being there more in one week than I'd been in my whole life was slightly inaccurate.
At any rate, I prefer to avoid the place altogether.
1 comment:
bloody nose tip. If you soak a cotton ball in Afrin nose spray and shove it up there during their nose bleed, it cuts the time down by 1/2 at least. My ENT said the Afrin constricts the blood vessels and stops the bleeding! We keep afrin and cotton all over the house
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