...I don't know.
That's basically how yesterday went at the Emergency Room. My youngest daughter got sick on Monday morning at school with what appeared to be some sort of virus. Fever, vomiting, etc. She still had the fever on Tuesday and started complaining about a pain in her lower abdomen. My wife took her to the doctor yesterday morning. After three hours there they thought it was probably a virus but she could have appendicitis and they couldn't run the blood test that could confirm it there. "Just go to the ER. We'll phone ahead and let them know. You'll be in and out in no time." So my wife took her to the ER. They got there at noon. I left work early and got there at 5:15. I had it easy. We got home last night at 11PM. The ER was an absolute zoo. There was no full moon last night but today is a new moon so maybe that had something to do with it. Of course the fact that we were lucky enough to go to the ER on the day they rolled out their new computer system didn't help. Hospital ER's also operate on a different time scale than the rest of the world. You have to remember to do the conversions. 30 minutes = 2 hours, as in "we should have the results in 30-45 minutes". It's the same conversion factor that the airlines use.
They couldn't draw blood at first because she was dehydrated from being sick and they couldn't find a vein. Finally they got her stuck and started an IV. Blood tests, urinalysis, a CAT scan, two doctors and almost twelve hours (not counting the two at the doctors office) later they discharged her and we went home. Still not knowing what the problem was. We did however confirm that it wasn't appendicitis and she had the benefit of about eight hours of IV fluids to rehydrate her. For that it was worth it. Better safe than sorry with your kids. But boy oh boy what a system.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
And Twelve Hours Later the Answer Is...
Posted by Bruce at 11:00 AM
Labels: appendicitis, doctors, Emergency Room, ER, Hospitals
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8 comments:
Health care sucks here in America!
I hope your daughter feels better soon.
awe, i hope your daughter gets to feeling better!
yeah, hospitals do suck, they removed my appendix the summer before last, and then figured out it was really my gall bladder that was making me sick. so they took that out a couple days later. it was legitimate bad times!
Hospitals do suck, but what are we going to do?
My son had to have his appendix out a little over a year ago. It was a scary thing. I hope your daughter is feeling better.
Thank you all for the well wishes. She slept in today and woke up feeling fine so she went to school for the later part of the day.
Yeah, the hospital thing does suck. Being there for so long I got to observe and you know, I really couldn't blame any of the individuals doing their jobs. They all treated her and us well. They were just spread REALLY thin. Plus I knew a lot of it was driven by the legal/malpractice aspect. We're luck enough to have insurance and they weren't hesitant to dot all the i's and cross all the t's. I told my wife that some old country doctor would've put his hands on her and told us no appendicitis, take her home and give her fluids.
Hey TM, did they give you your appendix back?
Glad to hear your daughter is ok. You hit it on the head- the problem is under-staffing. Lots of money for drug companies and CEO's and HMO paper pushers, but... argh. I'm not gonna start.
The important thing is that your daughter is ok. My amateur medical opinion is that it sounds like some type of food poisoning. And yes, it is better safe than sorry. I had a good friend who complained of similar problems, but put off going to the doctor. To make a long story short, it ended up being very serious and he didn't make it.
Least we forget how fragile we are....
GW, that she is okay is indeed the important thing. She bounced right back and was fine the next day. I considered food poisoning but was doubtful since we all had exactly the same thing to eat the day before and no one else had as much as a stomach ache.
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