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| This is not only how long we are open but how long you will wait... |
I think it is fair to say that one of the worst parts of having to go to the Emergency Room of a hospital is having to go to the Emergency Room. Not that it's bad enough that you are in extreme pain or you are bleeding from places that you didn't even know you had places, but now you have to endure the waiting game.
Two years ago, just after Christmas, I was called upon to don my superhero costume and rescue a child from a burning building... Actually, I was moving a refrigerator down a set a steps in our house when I blew out MCL and a few other appendages around my knee. The pain I experienced caused me to say words in Japanese, Chinese and a few other languages I have never learned. So, of course, we needed to go to the Emergency Room.
As we approached the Emergency Room, my wife went in search of someone to bring a wheelchair since walking from the car was now impossible. A nice little old lady dressed in a white uniform appeared and helped shuffle me from the car to the wheelchair. Actually, she was no help at all. As we approached the doors to the E.R. I soon learned that she had the eyesight of Stevie Wonder. She steered me into the door frame not once but twice as we busted into triage.
Now, I don't want to say that they were moving slowly in the E.R. but I'm pretty sure there was a man in there being treated for a musket wound. I also heard the nurse call John Quincy Adams as the next candidate in triage. Anyway...I was seated next to a man who was bleeding worse than Ted Kennedy's liver. As I looked around the room, I noticed that there seemed to be an inordinate amount of people with what looked to be urine samples in those little plastic containers. I was now no longer certain whether I was in an Emergency Room or I was hallucinating that I was at a Snapple convention.
Do I have to go on? Nearly four hours later with the only diagnosis being that nothing was broke and that I should see a specialist, my wife and I left the E.R. and headed home to salvage what was left of our evening. Maybe next time I'll just take the advice of my Little League Coach and "just walk it off" and skip the whole E.R. fiasco.
Be Well.
Bill