My first ER

Sounds kinda' like some twisted child toy pushed relentlessly by some out-of-touch marketing exec from another planet. Nope, it explains the events of today. Sarah and I bid my family goodbye after a long weekend of time spent together. We wanted to get an early jump on the post-4th traffic and ended up heading out around 10am. The drive was perfectly smooth and we made it home by around noon. We futzed around the house just long enough to start to feel at-home again, began eating some lunch, were paid a visit by our landlord Linda and husband, then headed to the emergency room. Yes, the emergency room.

Sarah was having some pains this weekend which she alleviated by taking some pain killers and other remedies -- none of which, unfortunately, truly did any good. Pain welled up inside her until she couldn't hold back her tears. She pleaded with me and we immediately drove a few blocks to the ER at Tacoma General Hospital. This was my first ER experience and I thought to expect patient after patient of bloodied patients being wheeled in and immediately rushed to some part of the hospital where experts would quickly go to work. Not so. The "emergency" in this emergency room seemed more to teeter on what channel the waiting room TV should be on than on the patients themselves. We checked Sarah in and she was assessed by a nurse and given a number. Well, she wasn't really given a number. Had that happened, we would've had some sense as to when she would be seen by a doctor. Instead we sat and waited for multiple hours while she willed her pain away.

I'm pretty sure the facility was under-staffed on this weekend but once Sarah was finally called back to see a doctor we were releaved. She was given a bed in a room shared by two others and separate by a sliding sheet for privacy. She slipped into something more suitable for the ER and headed to the restroom to fill her complimentary urine sample. Then we waited some more. The medical profession (dentists, optomitrists, etc.) is good at this. I tried to make her as comfortable as possible as a nurse came to asses her condition followed by a not-so-impressive doctor. Although not a speedy process, she was diagnosed with a kidney infection, given a couple pills, and sent out the door with three perscriptions and an empty stomach now full of three pil-- wait a minute!

An aside

We barely made it home before the strong medication Sarah took forced her to vomit multiple times this evening. Somehow she survived and managed to get some food in her and take her perscribed pills. Today was an interesting day and I can only hope to do my best at taking care of Sarah.

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