My Long Night In The Emergency Room (Lorde, WuMo, Captain America Statistics) [Daily Bloggity Entry #118]

[El Héroe Oscuro]

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Date: 02 July 2014
Time: 1:52 AM ET
Mood: Drinking that tonic and gin

First off, I just wanted to say that I hope no one has to experience what I had to experience. Or more or less, just not end up in a hospital. Maybe it's just me, but because of my Nursing experiences through my college clinicals, I get very urked by the very sight of patients and the fast pace style of hospitals. Anyways, let me just delve right into this shall we?

It all started when I let out of work early at my night job. It was one of those rare days where I just felt like going home, playing some mindless Xbox, and then getting a good night's rest. However, "fate" had a different tale in store for me. When I got home and was entering the side door of the house, I saw my mom on the porch just watching some television. So, just for some fun, I decided to surprise her. I gave her a little bit of a jump, but that's besides the point. When she was getting up though to welcome me back home, she ended up accidentally knocking over a glass that was besides the bed she was lying in. Almost on cue, the glass completely shattered and my mom ended up slicing open her foot. It was pretty deep, too. Unfortunately for some squeamish people, there was quite a good amount of blood spewing out, and my dad and I both knew that she had to go to the emergency room. Instinctively, I made a make-shift bandage for her, and I rushed her off to the ER - considering I felt mainly the cause for the blame.

Daily Music - "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" by Lorde

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Now as you many of you probably already know, I've had experiences working in a hospital. I did a few clinicals before switching out of my major, so I've had a (rough) experience of how a hospital works. Not to my surprise, when my mom and I reached the emergency room at around 8pm, the place was hopping. About probably 2/3 of the chairs were filled with patients, although I can't really say that none of them looked seriously injured or sick, which is when this story I'm about to tell really urks me. We then commenced to wait in the emergency room to be looked at for 50 long minutes. That's right, 50 minutes. I completely understand how busy hospitals can be and that the work of the nurses there are non stop, however when a patient has an open wound that is in risk of infection than things need to be prioritized. Instead of having it looked at and cleansed, my mom had to sit in that wheelchair with her foot soaking in blood for practically an hour. Like I stated before, no other person there was seriously injured - on the outside that is - and there was even a sign right in the ER that stated that "patients with serious injury or illness will be prioritized before people who have been waiting longer." Which I thoroughly agree with, but was falsely executed in this situation.

Daily Comic - "Espresso Shots" by Wulff & Morgenthaler of WuMo

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In the end, it took nearly 2 hours before my mom was given a room, mainly because every room and bed was occupied at that time. A nurse finally came in and started the prep work for the person doing the stitching, but did a very poor job at it. Numerous times she broke the sterile field when it came to prepping the equipment, which for non-medical people means that she diverted her attention away from her station, which is something that you are supposed to keep constant diligence with. The purpose of this is that if the nurse looks away from the station, then there is a risk of the sterile equipment being contaminated and thus can cause a risk in contamination in the wound of the patient. Nonetheless, I was going to call her out on it, but I had been keeping an attentive gaze at the station the whole time just in the case that she did break the sterile field. It took another 30 minutes before the guy performing the...I don't want to say "surgery" because it wasn't exactly that, but she ended up getting seven stitches in the end. She's actually going to the doctor right now to get the stitches removed, so hopefully everything in the healing process went according to plan.

Daily Video - "Captain America Statistics Song" by animators Animation Domination

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I don't want to say that I'm bitter about the whole experience I had in the hospital, but I can say that I'm displeased about the way things were run there. I understand that it was a really busy time, but the way things were managed was completely unacceptable. Anyways, what do you think of this ordeal? Have you ever had to go to the emergency room before? What was your opinion on the experience? Comment below as I'd love to hear and discuss with you what you have to say about this topic!

‡ As always, the "Daily Bloggity" is self written by myself and includes just some of my opinions on different mediums. If you have a subject that you might want me to touch on, feel free to PM me or comment below! I would love to hear some of your ideas! Tune in tomorrow at 5PM Eastern Time for the next edition of the "Daily Bloggity!" Cheers! ‡

- elheroeoscuro

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[Oryx]

You got off easy on the emergency room - really, a few stitches isn't something where the ER staff are going to be there saying "PUT HER UP AHEAD HER LIFE IS ON THE LINE", and an hour is less than people often have to wait for normal doctors when they have appointments. Sounds like your love for your mom is making you somewhat understandably biased here; my mom went there for chest pain during chemo, one of those invisible things that you deemed less important. The time before I went with her was when she was having another more personal issue that ended up being a symptom of her cancer, another one that you wouldn't have seen. When they say "serious injury or illness", they don't mean a couple of stitches - they mean things that have a high chance of killing you if you wait an hour.

 

[El Héroe Oscuro]

You got off easy on the emergency room - really, a few stitches isn't something where the ER staff are going to be there saying "PUT HER UP AHEAD HER LIFE IS ON THE LINE", and an hour is less than people often have to wait for normal doctors when they have appointments. Sounds like your love for your mom is making you somewhat understandably biased here; my mom went there for chest pain during chemo, one of those invisible things that you deemed less important. The time before I went with her was when she was having another more personal issue that ended up being a symptom of her cancer, another one that you wouldn't have seen. When they say "serious injury or illness", they don't mean a couple of stitches - they mean things that have a high chance of killing you if you wait an hour.

When I was in the ER, it's not that I didn't understand that people had "invisible" injuries. I understand fully well that there are a lot of symptoms and signs that cannot be seen by the human eye. It's hard to really describe how big the wound was on her foot without a physical picture - the person doing the stitches even commented on how deep it really was - and I could actually here a bunch of conversations of people going in with the nurse (which is a clear violation of HIPPA) so I know that a few of them were "Internet scares" as I like to call them. Sure, some of it is biased that it is my mom with this huge open wound, but considering the circumstances of that specific situation the actions taken were not completely justifiable.