Visit to the Emergency Room

Since my initial blog I’ve had some inquiries regarding my trip to the emergency room. So for all of my loyal blog reader(s) I decided to finish the story for you.
I had a stomach flu with a fever and was sick for four straight days. During the week I had called the advice nurse multiple times, and was becoming very accustomed to the automated system, and the standard advice nurse questions. (No, I’m not crapping blood). I called the last morning and scheduled an appointment with the doctor, but I decided going in might just be a hassle and canceled the appointment within minutes of setting it up. Finally, I just agreed to see a doctor. However, it was getting late in the day so said she just called me back on the phone. She chastised me for not coming in sooner, and then told me to come in to the lab for tests. They wanted a blood sample, and a stool sample. Despite feeling awful, and being a little disgusted by the idea of that, I drove myself to the hospital.
I arrived to discover the lab was closed. Quite disturbed I hobbled to the emergency room. I drove all the way here maybe I could at least get an IV before I go home. I waited in a short line and asked the guy at the counter the most important question, “How much is it going to cost me for my visit?”
“Your copay will be $35.”
“Go ahead and sign me up.”

I couldn’t believe how quickly my name was called. Less than fifteen minutes from my arrival I had blood drawn, and a plastic tube hanging out my arm ready to receive the IV. $35 well spent. Unfortunately, it was over an hour until I was in a bed, in the hallway, talking to a doctor. Eventually, the nurse came and hooked up my IV so I was on my way to being hydrated, the main goal of my visit. The nurse also gave me a little white pill to swallow, and a plastic jar for the stool sample. The jar looked very similar to the jars used for a urine sample. Holding the jar I looked at him and said, “you have to have pretty good aim I guess.” He laughed and then pondered a solution. He returned with a big plastic tub so I could poop in that and then scoop it into the jar. Um… yeah, that didn’t seem to make the activity seem any more pleasant.
I never completed the sample, because that little white pill worked too well. I thought Imodium AD was strong, not compared to this thing. I won’t go into any more details on that subject.
Once the old man left the adjacent room (you can read about him under the label “initial blog”) a firefighter rolled in a shirtless, drunk Mexican guy covered in blood. I looked over to see this poor guy with blood all over his face, and chest, and listened to the paramedic verbally berating him as he took him into the room.
“Did you have some fun today? Good party?”
The incoherent drunk did not respond to the harassment, but he did provide me some entertainment before I left the hospital.
It turned out he had not suffered a major injury, but after excessive drinking his blood thinned, and he was suffering from a severe bloody nose. All that blood had come from his nose. Wow. I listened as the white people tried to talk to him in Spanish. The whole exchange was funny, but I’ll give you a couple of highlights.
During the first interrogation the nurse yelled, “cuantos cervezas?” He answered, “un dia.” I thought this was hilarious. It was probably true. From the looks of it he was probably drinking for an entire day. Then later they brought in someone else and asked him the same question, “cuantos cervezas?” This time he answered, “cuatro.” Four? Maybe four cases. He continue to mumble in broken Spanish. Very little he said was intelligible. Another firefighter stopped by and recognized him, and even alluded to a tattoo he had on his arm. I guess our drunk nose-bleeder was an emergency room regular. Later he was shouting for help and no one was around. I looked in and saw more blood dripping off his body. We made eye contact and he said, “Amigo. Ayudame.” So I rolled my IV down the hall and called nurse over for him.
At this point I didn’t really feel much better. I asked the nurse if he could speed up the IV going into me. It just works on gravity so he raised the height of it. Once the majority of it was gone I went home. I missed the Lakers/Celtics game, but I left hydrated. I went in to work the next day at lunch so I could teach my last two classes, but I left the arm band on my wrist from the ER to validate my morning absence.