Last Tuesday, I went to the emergency room at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. I had been suffering from flu-like systems for close to 10 days: nausea, heartburn,and other stomach ailments, (which I won't mention at the risk of being too graphic) severe neck and shoulder pain, and a rash on my lower arms and around my eyes and ears. I had gone to the doctor the week before and he took some blood tests for an ulcer which would take two weeks for the results. In the mean time, he gave me medicine for nausea and told me to take Prilosec for my heartburn. That was Thursday and I was still very sick Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I started to get scared because I wasn't getting any better. On Tuesday morning, several people encouraged me to go to the emergency room and since I live only two blocks away from the hospital, I really had no excuse not to go. However, I still didn't want to go-I had heard so many horror stories about emergency rooms. People wait 10 hours to get seen and feeling the way I did, I really couldn't imagine waiting 10 hours to see a doctor. But I thought that maybe today wouldn't be busy and I could get in and out in a couple of hours. HA!
I went in around 10:00 in the morning and I didn't leave the hospital until about 6:30. So much for wishing and hoping. I sat in the general waiting area for about 4.5 hours and if you ask me what I did during that time I couldn't tell you. I didn't feel like reading or writing and I couldn't take a walk because they might have called my name so most of the time was spent staring off into space.
I talked to a Homecare worker who had brought in the woman she took care of and evidently, this wasn't the first time she had brought her to the emergency room. The homecare worker said that this woman was a bit of a hypochondriac. One woman came in who seemed to have hurt her leg-she could hardly walk and she had all her possessions with her. At one point she stood up, eyes closed and swayed and was like that for at least 20 minutes. I don't think she was all there. I then saw a young man who was in a wheelchair wheeled in by his girlfriend. He was maybe in his early 20's. He looked very sick, in a lot of pain, shivering and was holding on to what I think was a blood transfusion. His girlfriend tried to comfort him and she told me it was his kidneys. I saw one woman, maybe in her 40s, come in around 2:00 complaining of chest pains. There were at least 20 people in the waiting room throughout the day. The ones that were waited on were immediately replaced by more people coming through the doors.
I kept checking with the front desk every hour to see what time I would be called and to make sure they hadn't forgotten about me. Many people came after me and got waited on. The man with the kidney problem was one that came after me but got waited on right away. I wasn't an emergency-I understand that but I still felt awful. At one point I was #5, then I was #3 and then I was finally called in. The nurse who waited on me (along with another patient) was very nice but he was rattled. The ER seemed to be short on staff that day but full of overworked nurses. The nurse took all the relevant tests. I didn't have a temperature and my blood pressure was normal and I thought that now, finally I would see a doctor.
No such luck. I then was sent into a big room with about 20 patients in beds, some in private areas with curtains, others just stuck in the middle of the room. I was given a chair and was placed in the middle of this big room. The first doctor I saw after about an hour was a med student (I think). He was nice enough but seemed surprised that I had come in and told me that I really didn't need to come in with my symptoms (was that supposed to make me feel better?). They took lots of blood and other samples from me (which I won't go into due to the graphic nature if you know what I mean but I will tell you this: one sample that is normally taken lying down had to be done standing up because there were no beds for me (lucky me!). They also gave me 2 Tylenols for my migraine which was just starting (lucky me again!). It didn't help that I hadn't been eating very much for the past couple of days-that always triggers my migraines. They also gave me an IV in case of dehydration. I couldn't leave until I saw the supervisor of the first doctor which took another 2 hours and then I had to wait for the test results. They said I could leave but it wasn't recommended until they had a complete picture of my health which included the test results. I felt like I received good care but I got the feeling I was being talked down to by both doctors. At one point, I told the supervisor my symptoms-I referred to them as flu-like and he immediately asked me "how do you know it's the flu?" but with a slightly snotty attitude. Like I was trying to play doctor-whatever. The good news was that all my tests were negative. They even took a test for an ulcer or bleeding in that area which was negative.
As I was leaving this big room from hell I passed by the young man with the kidney problem. He was lying on a bed stuck in the middle of the room with no privacy. He looked very pale and was still shivering. I told him I was sorry and walked out. I'm still thinking about him. I hope he's ok.
I left around 6:30 feeling better because the ordeal was over. I was also relieved that all my tests were negative. But I still felt very weak and my migraine was extremely painful. I hope I don't have to go to the ER again in my lifetime. But unfortunately, I might have go again someday.
