Part 2 (observations from the ER)

So there I am in the U of L ER. I hear they are great with trauma. I was not suffering from any trauma and they quickly figured this out. Once they'd FINALLY taken me off that totally uncomfortable body board, I asked if I could have a pillow. I did not think that this was an unreasonable request. The nurse said, "This is UofL, what do you think?" He then rolled up a towel and stuck it under my head. Not quite a pillow, but better than nothing. I got a tetanus shot, a pain pill & muscle relaxer. That's it. I had all of the feeling in all of my body parts. I wasn't bleeding. I had some small cuts but they'd quit bleeding back before I got on the ambulance. I had a bump on my head, but was still alert and oriented.

No one had called Bill, even though I had requested it numerous times. They couldn't get the phone in my room to call long distance (the nurse didn't know the code). Nurse Gary ended up letting me use his cell to call Bill. He was at work. I called and said, "Hi. Is Bill available? It's kind of important." (Kind of important?!??! Er...maybe I should have said urgent or something. Oh well. Didn't matter.) I told him, "We are all ok, but our tire blew out..." His response, "It's all my fault." :-( How sad. If only he'd fixed the tire, if only... I reassured him that we were all ok and safe.

The nurses and doctors figured I was ok. Someone else needed the room, so they rolled me out into the hallway to wait until Bill could get to Louisville to pick me up.

SO there I sat. On an ER bed, next to the nurses station for an hour & a half. I got the "luxury" of getting to the bathroom a couple of times (that's what IV fuilds will do to you). I sure didn't like the image in the mirror! Yikes! I did wash some of the little spots of blood from my face...carefully. I'd been warned about this little pieces of glass that could cause me great harm if they got into my eyes. Overall, though, I didn't look too bad, considering that I'd just tumbled down the hill in my van. (Do not attempt).

So there I sat. Bored. Cold. Hungry. Forgotten. :-( If I had gotten to stay in the dark room, I would have gone to sleep. But I really didn't feel like sleeping (shocker!) out in the middle of the hallway!!!! I did get to listen to things going on around me, though. Most of the staff was talking about lunch- who is going to lunch when, what they are going to eat, if they will bring something back, blah, blah. I know that housekeeping didn't get a room cleaned on another floor in time for this one guy to leave the ER. They got him ready to head up to a real room, just to learn that it was still dirty. They sent a staff person up to "spy" on the room to see if it the computer was right about the state of the room. It was, indeed, still dirty. So, they guy got wheeled back into his room for a little while.

A lady was brought in who had been stabbed by a family member. She was still alert & oriented so I'm not sure how bad her injury was. Of course, I couldn't look at her. She actually was in a ROOM! There were police officers, detectives, whoever who brought her in. She had a list of folks who would not be permitted to visit.

After a while of sitting in the hallway (on the ER bed), I realized that my head was still kinda pounding on the big bump! Now, even my 6 y/o daughter knows what to do at home if you bump your head. You ICE it. Duh. I guess those hospital folks don't think about a simple ICE PACK in the ER. I ended up asking for one. The nurse brought one. This guy was certainly not a mom...er...not sure if he was a dad either, but CERTAINLY not a mom. Moms know about ice packs.

It wasn't too much after I got the ice pack that Bill showed up to take me away from this silly hallway.

To be continued...