Wednesday night I felt the beginnings of an internal bleed starting in my left elbow. I didn’t really have time to do anything about it at that point, so I decided I would give myself my factor Thursday after I got home from work. However, by the end of the work day on Thursday the pain in my elbow was so sharp that I wasn’t even able to give myself the medicine due to the lack of bend in my elbow. Therefor, I made a trip to the emergency room, the first such trip I’ve made in more than half a year.When we got there, the initial nurse informed me that there might be a bit of a wait as they had just gotten in 2 trauma cases, which I totally understand and didn’t mind. Sure enough, it was a good hour before ANYONE got in after I got there, and another half hour before I got in past that at about 7 pm.
Luckily, I had brought my medicine with me as previous experiences told me it was generally a two to three hour wait just to order up the medicine. So I had a leg up on it, or so I thought. After the initial check out, the nurses largely ignored me and my medicine for another two hours. I brought my Oxycodone so that they knew what I had taken, only to find the Oxycodone I took before I went to the ER wearing out and so I then took my own pill while I waited for them to order a new one. All the while I was writhing in pain because even with the pain medication the pain in my elbow was so great that the pills were just a drop in the bucket. And during this where were the nurses? Standing around in the nurses station doing nothing of course.
All I needed was my medicine, my factor, infused into me so that it could begin to do something, if they wanted to hold me after they did that I didn’t care. I just needed the damn medicine otherwise I wouldn’t have gone.
We finally left at about 9:45 a good 4 hours after we went in, 15 minutes after they finally gave me my factor. Barely able to get dinner at the local Noodles & Co. which closed at 10pm and we walked in 5 minutes before. The bleed in my elbow was about two times more painful coming out than when I went in from the neglect that the emergency room induced onto me. Here 4 days later I am still taking pain medication, double doses of factor, twice a day, and still in a great deal of pain… all because they thought making me wait might somehow be helpful.