A TRIP TO THE ER

At the end of my last post I said that the doctor on duty at the walk-in clinic sent me to the ER. That was the last place that I wanted to be on Thanksgiving day. My wife drove me to the ER at Joseph Brant hospital josephbranthospital.ca. I was somewhat surprised to see that the ER was full when I got there. I went through the usual paper work to check in, then I wound up telling my story to three different people before I was told to sit down in the waiting room and wait my turn. My wife had the presence of mind to go home while we waiting, since we only live about 15 minutes from the hospital, and come back with a Thermos of hot tea and sandwiches to eat while we were waiting. That was good thing because I was not going to get anything to eat for a long time. Also, my wife came back with a book and my Ipod so that I could listen when I was tired of reading. Still, after a while, you get bored and impatient of waiting. I was in extreme discomfort and somewhat anxious wondering why I had been sent to the ER.

Finally, I got in. I told my wife to go home, I would text her to let her know what was going on. After I was admitted to ER i got to tell my story again to an ER nurse. She took my blood pressure, my pulse and asked me a whole list of questions, most of which seemed irrelevant to me but what do I know. Another nurse took five vials of blood and put a butterfly connection in my arm just in case it might be needed later. All of this did nothing to allay my fears. After that I was put into a room and told to wait, which I did. I waited, and waited, and waited. eventually, the resident came in and asked me the same questions again. I guess everyone has to ask you the same questions just in case you might have left something out of one of your versions but I don't think that anyone shares any of this information. At any rate, she told me that I was going to have a chest and pelvic X-ray Chest_radiograph Pelvis Radiographic Anatomy and an abdominal ultrasound Abdominal ultrasonography. At the end she said that she was going to have a surgeon come in and see me. I was becoming more and more nervous about where all of this was going.

Eventually, the surgeon, Dr. Choi, came to see me. He was pleasant enough and actually asked me some new questions which was a relief. He said that I did not seem to need emergency surgery but he wanted to book a colonoscopy



and a gastroscopy



for the following Wednesday. What could I say, I agreed.

Then there was another long wait until I could have my X-Ray

and Ultrasound.

1. 

All this time, I had nothing to eat or drink. I asked my nurse, a pleasant young woman, for water. She told me I could not have water but she would bring we ice just as soon as I had my Ultrasound. It was a long, long wait but eventually I was taken for an Ultrasound. Right after my Ultrasound I went for my X-Ray then I was taken back to my little room. As soon as was back in the room my nurse brought me a cup of ice chips for which I was eternally grateful.

At the end of all of this poking, prodding and testing, the resident came back to see me and told that they could not see anything physically wrong with me. That did not mean that there was nothing wrong with me, all it meant was that they could not see anything wrong with me based on the history and tests that they conducted that day. I had the colonoscopy and gastroscopy to look forward to the following Wednesday.

I do not have a recipe this week because I hardly had anything to eat that day in the ER but there are some things that you might think about, Aloe water, Coconut water and Kombucha. I tried all three in the following weeks but more about that in the next post.