wonderful ER visit

[Guest guest]

I had some pain when I got up this morning at 5 a.m. I took a lortab 5 and

phenergan and after about 45 minutes felt pretty much okay. Grabbed a shower

and went to work. I had only been at work about 15 minutes when a really bad

episode hit me. After about 30-45 minutes of horrible pain and nausea I asked a

friend to take me to the ER. I was trying to be inconspicuous but no such luck.

Before I could get out of the building I had 3 co-workers and my boss hovering

around. Anyway, I had my friend take me to the ER at the smaller hospital in

town. I went to the larger one two weeks ago when I had the bad episode after

the colonoscopy and it was a nightmare. I told my hubby the only way I'd go

back to that ER is if I'm already dead! Anyway, I had not been to the ER at the

smaller hospital since I live in a different town than the one I work in. They

got me back within 5 minutes of my arrival. Just a few minutes later the doc

was in. I told him I'm a very hard stick and to send someone good. He promised

he would. Minutes later a nurse and then a lab tech came in. They both looked

and looked for a decent vein. Each one tried one time only and then said they

were not going to torture me. They believed I needed a PICC line. In the

meantime another nurse came in and asked if I minded a shot for pain and nausea

since they were having a hard time with the IV. Of course, I said it was fine.

Just a minute after that a nurse was in giving me a shot of what must have been

a good dose of demerol and phenergan. When I arrived at the ER my pain was a 9

and not letting up. About 30 minutes after the shot it was down to a 2 or 3.

About the time the shot kicked in, they took me to radiology to do the PICC

line. The guy was really nice and explained exactly what it would entail. He

gave me three little shots to numb the arm. There was no pain after that. He

brought me back and they drew blood from the PICC line. About an hour later the

labs came back and they were fine. The doc asked if I wanted to stay or go. I

told him I really felt almost perfectly fine and I wanted to go. He called my

doc and it was agreed I would go home with the PICC line. The entire hospital

staff was wonderful. It was, by far, the best ER visit ever. The hospital in

my town is normally not bad and most of the staff and doctors are very kind.

However, this ER was the best. Maybe I jsut got lucky and hit them on a good

day. I just wanted to let everyone know about a positive experience with an ER.

W.

[Guest guest]

Kimber,

Yeah, I hope to stay away from the ER for a while. However, if I do go, I'll

try to go to that one. My new internal med doc goes to both that hospital and

the larger one in the same town. I live about 35 miles away so I had mostly

been going to the one in my town. It is a small hospital but I must say that

most of the time I received good care. However, I've never had as good an

experience as with the ER I went to on Wednesday. Of course, I am sure that it

helped that I went there at about 8:45 a.m. on a weekday instead of the middle

of the night on Saturday!

W