Metropolitan ER

So I went to the hospital on Sunday. Not because I was sick. Oh no, I was completely fine. My mother on the other hand was not. She had an anxiety attack coupled with horrible stomach pain. We tried to go to our local Doctor only to fine his office closed for the day.

My mother was at her wits end. She was confused, paranoid, weak and in pain. I had to push her into going to get help. We hopped in a cab and were at the ER in a few short minutes. She was coherent but confused. Her breathing was ragged and her face red. We were ushered past the waiting room into the pre-exam area.

There we met a male nurse who I can only describe as an asshole. He remembered my mother from her previous visits and treated her like a junkie in need of her next fix. My mother is a lot of things. But she is not, nor has she ever been a junkie. When she went to the Emergency Room it was not for Vicadins but for some kind of help. Something to get her past the withdrawal.

However that didn't seem to matter. This man was not very interested in helping us. Unfortunately for him my mother was legitimately sick. As such she was given a bed. The nurse told her to change and wait. You have to understand that she was in severe pain. Her stomach was on fire. So waiting was not an easy thing to do.

After a while a different nurse arrived to take her blood. Sometime later a Doctor arrived. He looker her over and put her on an IV for her stomach. We saw another Doctor who told us that they could only treat her physical ailment and that she would have to see a Psychiatrist for her anxiety.

The IV did it's job and she began to feel a little better. She told me to leave her and go home. Truth be told I was tempted. But I stayed. When the IV finished we were told that we could wait to see Psychiatrist but they would not prescribe her the pills she needed. Even though she would only need four.

We got a prescription for her stomach and left. It turns out her stomach had been effected by the Vicadin. It was just going back to normal when her anxiety caused it to act up. The worse her anxiety the worse the pain. The worse the pain the worse the anxiety. And so on and so forth in perpetuity.

So another visit to the hospital and another dose of apathy. Only this time she got some help in spite of that.

This morning she was pretty bad shape again. But she finally took my advise and called her friend. Her friend was able to giver a few anxiety pills to get her through this. Had she done this the day before we wouldn't have had to go the ER.

Anyway she has an appointment on Tuesday. She should be able to get her meds. I hope she doesn't fuck it up again. Not only is this tedious and tiring but it is getting redundant. Emotional breakdowns should not be redundant.

This is what I meant when I said I could use more nothing.

On a side note. There was a guy in the room with us. He had allergies. Apparently he had coughed up a little blood. Just a bit. Scary sure but not really serious. He went to emergency room because of this. The entire we where there I never heard him cough or even sneeze. Who the FUCK goes to an ER for allergies?

Also while we were at the hospital my mother embarrassed an orderly. I think she was an orderly. The only thing I know for sure is that she wasn't a nurse. My mother bruises easily and has deep veins. This means that it is hard to draw blood from her and she almost always gets a large black and blue. The orderly was going to try to take her blood when my mother warned her she would get one chance. You see she remembered the woman from a previous visit. This threw the orderly off. She spent the next five minutes trying to find a vein before giving up entirely. I felt sorry for her but found the whole thing funny.