When we last left this story in "Gas Bubbles, Bad Decisions and the House of Horror: Part 1" I was writhing in pain mostly on the floor in an ER exam room doing my best impression of a Roomba.....ah yes.....
Compared to the constant moaning of the elderly person in the room across the hall, who was literally begging to be put out of her misery plus the frequent screams of the barage of people entering the ER area down the corridor, I was like "Hey at least I am not in as bad of shape as these people".
Yes, I was writhing in pain somewhere between bed and floor, panting and doing my best to talk myself out of the pain, but, I knew I was not anywhere close to my death bed!
When I was first taken back to an ER exam room, I was hopeful that someone would show up relatively quickly to get a read on how to help me get rid of this painful gas bubble.
Hope turned into desperation. It was a full hour before anyone visited me and wow when she did she was an absolute peach!
When she first came in the room and saw me squatting next to my bed she said in a not so empathetic tone of voice (more of an order) that I needed to get up off the floor and onto the exam table so she could ask me some questions.
She didn't seem to care much about my wierd contortionist writhing, labored breathing and general inability to actually put three or four words together at a time due to excrutiating painful cramping.
Despite being in excruciating pain, I could read nurse "Kranky Pants's" (KP) general disposition; I quickly realized that should I upset nurse KP with what I really wanted to say, she would end up being my torturer in what was already feeling like an internment camp. In my nicest and kindest voice possible I told her that I could not crawl up on that table and that constantly changing between laying on the floor and squatting was the only way I could find any sort of relief to be able to answer her quesitons at that point.
This did not sit will with nurse KP and she seemed extremely put out by my response! She asked me for my insurance card, family stuff, description of symptoms, etc. and wrote all of that down and then finally at the end of the admninstrative discussion asked me about my pain level on a scale of 1 to 10 with one being next to no pain at all and 10 being so unbearable that death would be welcome!
I said are you f-ing kidding me? Ok, so I didnt say that, but, I sure thought it!
To further set the stage, the whole time nurse KP was conducting her "warm and friendly" interview, the woman in the room across the hall kept repeating in a moaning/screaming voice: "When will they come, why wont anyone help me, I cant do this anymore, I am done I want this done, please, please, please end this!" This went on for 3 hours that morning, no exaggeration here!
My response to KP was that if what was going on in that room across the hall was a 10, I am at 9 right now! She concluded her interview, said someone would be there "shortly" to examine me further and to help me manage my pain.
Exactly one hour later the next person arrived.
They asked me another barage of questions at least this time mostly about my actual symptoms and how I ended up in the ER.
When nurse #2 (N#2) was about to leave I asked if I could use the restroom. She said sure go straight down the hall, take a left and it was at the end of the long corridor on the right.
So I monkey walked about the equivalent of a city block round trip to the bathroom by myself. I could have passed out and died in that bathroom and not one nurse on that floor would have known about it until the flies starting infested my dead body! I practically crawled back from the bathroom, passed nurse KP's desk and no one said a thing or offered to help!
Another 30 minutes passed by the time nurse #3 came, asked me more questions, and decided I needed and IV.
She got that going and when the task was done, she said an ER doctor and an anesthetist would be there shortly to give me some drugs for my pain and to figure out a treatment plan.
Shortly meant another 30 minutes and you can count on the fact that I was watching the clock. Finally, around 11:00am I got the first of the 5 rounds of heavy duty pain meds injected into my IV that I would need to manage pain during this ordeal.
Once the ER doctor showed up, she walked me down to a special room to receive an ultrasound for my gas bubble. Another 30 minutes after the ultrasound, the ER doctor came to relay the bad news: No gas bubble, full on gallbladder attack, huge stones, a very enlarged and sick gallbladder and at the current moment a blockage.
She asked me how long I had been dealing with gall bladder issues, meaning over the last few months or year? I said last night at 12:30am was the first time I had ever felt anything like cramping or been aware of a possible issue - I still asked, albeit under the influence of pain meds, if she was sure it was a gallbladder issue, because, you guessed it, it still felt like a massive gas bubble!
Once the initial round of pain meds started to wear off the anesthetist showed up again and said that it would be much less expensive to perform surgery on an outpatient basis vs. via an emergency room surgery. I asked that if I went home would I be given the same pain meds as the ones that were just wearing off? She said no, but, she could give me a dose of what they would send me home with to manage pain just to see if it would knock the pain down enough to be bearable. I said sounds good lets try it! 10 minutes after they administered the drugs I was back on the floor - the hydro they put onboard wouldn't even touch the pain once the original "good pain meds" wore-off.
At this point they put the 2nd of 5 doses of the heavy duty "good stuff" in my IV and called the surgeon in for a consult. At about 2pm it was determined that I would not be leaving the hospital with my gallbladder unless it was in a ziplock bag stuffed in my coat pocket.
The beauty of this decision was that I finally got to leave the "house of horror that is the ER" . I went directly to pre-op via gurney this time - I sure missed crawling down those hallways. The difference in the care and the attitide of the staff was so far removed from the ER staff that I actually wondered if I had missed seeing the "Bright White Light" as I passed into the Kingdom of Heaven? The pre-op area was full of angels and saints and people who actually cared about thier jobs and thier patients!
The only real issue I had was that my surgery didn't happen until 12:30am. It wasn't so bad though because I had warm blankets, fuzzy socks and three more rounds of the heavy duty meds to get me to surgery!
Thanks for reading.........Paul
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