Just a warning: Some of this may be gross if you don't like talk of what other peoples bodies do in the bathroom. I don't go into detail but I do mention it in passing. If you don't like then I suggest you skip the first couple of sentences.
It all started at 10:30 PM. On the night of the 13th. (If you read my previous post, my boyfriend and I are back at his parents house until we move into our apartment this Thursday.) I had eaten a variety of junk food through the day including dairy products. I am lactose intolerant. Because of my intolerance of lactose, I started to have some stomach cramps and related bathroom things. I was also extremely nauseous. Unfortunately that part is not too new to me since I have IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome - or as I like to call it, Irrational Bull Shit). This continued for an hour and half at which point my stomach settled down just enough that I said F*** it I need to go to a clinic or something. Since I've been staying with my boyfriend and he was playing Rock Band with brother and friends and their song was over, he followed me and asked what was wrong. I explained and he said he would drive me since my car was blocked in and I needed to find a doctor NOW!
Mind you, this happened on a Saturday night. It's now a few minutes after Midnight so really, it's Sunday morning. Regardless, where I used to live there were clinics open all night so I safely (wrongly) assume that there are clinics everywhere open 24/7. This is where the adventure really began. We find one a few minutes away and go. It's CLOSED. We look on his iPhone for others. There's one about 10-15 minutes away. We try to find it. IT DOES NOT EXIST! So we keep driving since on the map it shows many more in the direction we are driving. We're bound to find one, right? Sort of. Finally I spot a hospital on the map. I realize this is my only chance once we passed a clinic that closed at Midnight and it was about 12:20 when we got to it. I was as pissed as one could be while trying to make sure I didn't vomit or poop or have anything come out of any bodily orifice.
We get to hospital and I sign in. I have to do a urine sample. I am finally starting to feel a little better and while I am still being checked-in, a pregnant lady comes in and she's bleeding. Then her water breaks. I am still glad I was not her, but I wish her the best anyways and hope everything is alright with her and her baby. Anyways - back to the story. So, I get checked in at 12:30. Finally at 1:30 AM I get to go get a bed. My stomach feels almost normal at this point but I still want to know what's going on. My boyfriend and I try to get some sleep since we had been awake all day cleaning the house and having fun. I can't sleep because my stomach is starting to hurt again. The nurse (named Ziggy - best fucking name for a nurse!) man (Yes, he was a man.) asks me what's wrong and if I have any medicine allergies. I inform him of them. (Note this is time 2 I've been asked, the first time being when they gave me the nifty BRIGHT RED BRACELET that they wrote my allergies on!) Then he goes away. This took a minute. Finally around 2:45 AM the doctor comes to see me. She looks like she belongs in an ambulance due to her outfit and she a girl following her around taking notes. She asks me if I have any medicine allergies (Time 3!) and what hurts, how does it hurt, blahblahblah. She tells me they will order some tests and x-rays. I say okay, happy they are finally doing something since I've been at the ER for over two hours now.
Another 20 minutes pass, with me anxiously thinking anybody who gets near my curtain is there to take my blood. I am more excited about finding out what's wrong, rather than being poked in the arm. During that time I had heard a male nurse with the lady next to me, trying to draw her blood. He blew 3 of her veins before another male doctor had to be called to do it. I silently pray that does not happen to me. It didn't. Sort of. Finally Ziggy comes back and pokes my arm with the needle set-up thingy to take my blood. It's not coming out. He tries with another tubey-thing. Nope, he realises he blew my vein. In my mind I'm all 'Oh that's okay! When I donate blood, they usually take form my left since that vein is nicer.' I inform him of such and he jokes with me "Why didn't you tell me that in the first place? LOL!" (He didn't actually say lol, but he did chuckle to himself like he was super funny.) He tries in that arm. HE BLOWS THE VEIN! THE BIG ONE THAT IS LIKE A DIME SIZED BLUE BLOB ON MY ARM! Actually, he didn't even get into it. He just went right into muscle. I am becoming highly concerned for my own health. Thankfully he gets another nurse to come do it. In the mean time, the wound in my left arm starts to leak blood. I tell my body it needs to start cooperating. My boyfriend is there the whole time and takes my hand at this point since he understands how worried I am.
Ziggy and a lady nurse come in. It's the same nurse that checked me in. She was nice. She gets the needle in and all nicely in my right arm. (I know that sentence doesn't make much sense but I don't care right now!) It's going fine until she takes the holder thing off to put the tubey adapter thing on. My arm just starts to BLEED! On my gown, on the sheets, bed, dripping down my arm. But she quickly gets the adapter on and tubey things in to take my blood and she stops the bleeding and cleans most of it up.
I'm told to relax and I will get my x-rays soon. That was around like, 3:15/3:20 AM. An hour later (I sensed this hour trend awhile ago but it was still irritating.) a guy comes and rolls me away to get my x-rays. They take you in your bed now because it's faster and no one passes out on you. I am feeling dehydrated since they only put the IV in but did not put a drip in. ('Okay......?' I thought.) I am laying in my bed, my boyfriend kisses me and tells me I look beautiful. I tell him he's crazy and he kisses me to shut me up. Then we hear a lady get angrier.
Angry Lady: "YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THIS LADY HAS BEEN HERE FOR FOUR HOURS AND SHE IS JUST GETTING HER X-RAYS?!"
Me (To my boyfriend): Well, she's mad.
Boyfriend (To me): Shhhh!!!! (He has this thing where he thinks every time I say something, people will hear me, even if I'm whispering super quiet.)
The guy comes out, tells my boyfriend to wait in the waiting room area and takes me in. X-Rays are taken and I am taken back to my 'room'. All it is, is a curtained area. It's dumb. Anyways - Ziggy comes and brings me water on the request of my Boyfriend after I asked him to get me some when he went. But I wasn't allowed to get out of bed. So, I drink my water, out of a straw, like a child. Then my boyfriend and I try to get some sleep since we are informed that I will not be getting results for at least 45 minutes.
Just after 5:20 AM a lady comes asking me how I'm going to pay. My boyfriend and I have a conversation including my saying 'Oh shit! I'm broke!' and other similar things and not wanting to call my parents and wake them to ask what to do. She comes back and we tell her that when I leave I'll pay. Somehow. We go back to sleep though, and an hour later (Again with the hour thing.) my doctor comes back with her shadow person to tell me that I have an Urinary Tract Infection and it's actually kind of bad because if I hadn't come in that day, it could have spread through my body to a staph infection, so it's good they caught it 'In time.' She then proceeds to ask me (2nd time for her, 4th time that night/morning) if I'm allergic to any medications. This the conversation after that.
ER doctor lady: Okay. Have you ever had this, this and this medicine.
Me: Uhm.... I don't think so.
ER doctor lady: Okay. Have you ever had this, this and this medicine.
Me: Uhm.... I don't think so. (My boyfriend gives me a look like 'Really?!')
ER doctor lady: What about this? Or that?
Me: Uhm... probably not. I know I've had morphine.
ER doctor lady: Well, that's a shot and we can't give you that.
Me: ....okay.
My boyfriend (Whispering to me.): You don't know what you've had? (I ignored him for the time being.)
ER doctor lady: What about this? (One of the first things she asked.) It's this with this in it.
Me: I don't think so. But isn't that related to what I'm allergic to?
ER doctor lady: Well yeah, they are cousins but it's fine.
Me: Oh. *looks at boyfriend* Uhm, well, okay.
She writes up the scripts and finally around 6:30 I get to go home. I am paying for my bill. My boyfriend has to put it on his card since I forgot that I have a debit card thing from my insurance company that PAYS FOR ALL MEDICAL EXPENSES! (I felt dumb the next day when I went back and changed the payment.) We go to Walgreens to get all my pills (3 different kinds). Luckily it's 24 hours and RIGHT next to the hospital! Like literally, only a wall between them. We get in the car and head back home. I read the instructions of them all and get to the one that I was questioning earlier whether I could safely take it due to my allergy. There is an explicit warning, in bold and all caps 'DO NOT TAKE THIS MEDICATION IF YOU HAVE HAD A SEVERE ALLERGIC REACTION TO THE FOLLOWING MEDICATIONS:' and then lists some related meds. The SECOND ONE on the list is the one I am allergic to! I read this to my boyfriend and even shove the paper in his face (Even though he's driving and probably didn't care at the time.) He rolls his eyes and tells me I shouldn't take them. I give him the ' Do you think I'm dumb?!' look and probably even said it. I don't remember. We finally get back to the house, I've already taken my first dose of meds and it's just past 7 AM now.
We went to bed and in the morning I called the hospital to complain about the doctor being incompetent and trying to kill me. I also let them know that I could totally sue them but tell them I won't. But I warned them. When I went in to get the payment straightened out I also got cards so that I can formally complain.
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