Emergency Room Visit

My 4 year old son woke up yesterday morning at around 12:30 screaming.  It took over an hour of trying to calm him down before he was able to tell us that it was his mouth that was hurting him.  Then after trying to get him to let us look, to which he never did let us, he finally fell asleep in my wife’s arms. 

The next morning he woke up with the right side of his face swollen and he complained every time he tried to eat or drink, he was out of character for him and running a little bit of a fever.  Because of that my wife called his doctor and we were told to bring him to the office.  After looking and trying to get inside his mouth the doctor was finally able to see that there was a mark in the way back of his mouth and she told us that we should go over to the local Children’s Hospital ER to have them really look better and run some tests. 

My wife called me at work to tell me the news and I soon met her down there and we took him to the hospital.  We had arrived at about 12:30 p.m. and were taken to the little ER room.   We were greeted by the nurse who put the bands on his arm and took his info and wrote up his issues for the doctor and then left.  We waited for about an hour until a doctor arrived.  The doctor looked into his mouth and could see the marks in the back of his mouth and decided to confer with the childrens Ear, Nose and Throat specialist.  We waited another hour.

All this time all my son wanted was something to eat or drink.  When we asked a nurse we were told no until the doctor looked at him again.  We waited another hour.  Finally, after 2 hours after the first Dr told us an ENT doctor was coming, one finally arrived.  He looked and thought that maybe he should have a CT scan to make sure there were no foreign bodies in his wound.  It was now after 3 pm and as long as we have been there my son was behaving very well. 

We still had not seen or heard from anyone about the CT scan.  Finally about 5:30 we were taken to the room to have the CT scan done.  My son did an excellent job of sitting still while they were running the scan.  After the quick scan we were taken back to our little room to wait some more.

I am usually a patient person.  It takes a lot to really get me going.  I am also understanding that my son is not the only one in there.  From about 6-8 PM no one, and I mean no one, checked on my son.  By this time I was starting to get really pissed off.  I walked down to the nurse’s station and was told that someone would be with me soon. 

Another hour waiting and no one showed up.  Finally I had enough.  I stormed down to the nurse’s table and informed them that they had a half hour to get someone to come down to talk to us or we were walking out.  Within minutes the doctor on duty (totally different from the one we had earlier, they had a shift change and no one told us) came in to tell us that there was another child in a life and death situation that she was attending to.  I told her I was understanding of that but was there not anyone else that could look at him and his scans?  Was she the only doctor in the whole (enter curse words here) hospital?  Was she the only (curse) doctor that could read a CT scan?  She told me that the CT scan did not come in yet and was still in the hands of Radiology.  She told me she called again and will get them as soon as possible.

I told her that she had a half hour and that in the mean time I would go to Radiology to get the results.  Amazingly, the results suddenly came over and read that there were no foreign bodies lodged in the wound.  A nurse came in quickly and removed the IV from his hand.  Then the doctor came in again to try to explain what was going on.  She offered no apology but just restated her position that she was busy, they were waiting for the CT scan, yadda, yadda, yadda. 

Again I released a whole tiraid about how she can’t be the only qualified doctor in the whole ER let alone the whole hospital, how there can’t be only one person in the whole hospital qualified to read a CT scan, how their customer service sucks, how it took me to get really upset before anyone sat up and remembered that we were even in the building. 

Needless to say I really tore into everyone there.  Unfortunately, that is a gotcha business.  It is not like you really have a choice in these situations.  It is not like a supermarket or a drugstore where if you get bad service you have somewhere else to go.

Thankfully after it was all over I had my sister-in law to cheer me up with her wonderful and amazing Donnaisms.

Donnaism Part 4

Welcome to today’s installment of Donnaisms.  Again my sister-in-law has come up with not just one, but two wonderful manglings of the English language.  Our conversation begain with Donna telling my wife and I about how much trouble her oldest daughter was and how they had been arguing all night.  Her oldest daughter is 10.  Below is the conversation.  Enjoy….

Donna:  … I told her that she can have a few minutes on the computer to check her email and little did I know that husband was down there doing work.  Well, that is our bread and milk down there.

Me:  (trying to stifle a laugh)

Wife:  Donna!  It’s bread and butter!  Not bread and milk! (starts laughing)

Me: (laughing harder now) 

Donna:  You guys know what I mean.  (for some reason she is getting mad at us)

Donna:  It’s just a saying.  It’s not about how you say it.

Me and Wife:  (Roaring with laughter)

I seriously think I pulled a rib laughing so hard after she said this.  My wife was in tears.  It took me 5 minutes to calm down just to be able to sit back upright in my chair.  I am not sure when, but at some point my sister-in-law had left the room.  I had not laughed so hard in a long time.