Saturday night after Gina, Rollie and myself got back from YNP we enjoyed a delicious dinner of Gina’s beef stew and cornbread—the weather was perfect for it, cool and rainy.
During the night Michael was up and down with lots of swelling in his hand and lots of pain. Sunday bright and early we decided to head home and try to find a doctor to see again. Gina and Rollie need to pick up a motorcycle lift for Mike and Pat in Livingston so they decided to stay until Monday.
By the time we got home, Michael was miserable. I discovered that the walk in clinic at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Billings was open on Sundays so off we went. Michael decided we should take the motorhome in case there was the chance we would be referred to a specialist on Monday. We were SO glad we took the motorhome. St. Vincent’s has electric hookups for patients in one of their parking lots so we even had power.
We walked into the same day care around 4pm and the long process began. I was a bit disconcerted when someone from the business office came in, asked a bunch of questions and asked for my credit card. All this before we even saw a doctor—in my past career as a nurse, it was unethical and I think illegal to request money before treatment!
And we waited some more—after more than an hour we finally saw a nurse practitioner who was totally baffled by Michael’s symptoms. Next we saw a physician who was also totally baffled but started the ball rolling by moving us to the ER department where things were supposed to happen a little faster, NOT! Lots of blood work drawn, an IV and IV antibiotics and STILL no diagnosis. At least they gave Michael something for pain so he was a little more comfortable. Finally after 10:30PM we are being released to go—the doctor wanted to admit Michael but we vetoed that idea. Michael really needed some pain medications but refused to wait any longer in the ER for someone to finally get him something. OK, now it is almost 11pm and we are upstairs waiting at the pharmacy window—the tech comes and tells me they had to call the ER doctor because the dosage for the antibiotics was incorrect. We wait and wait, Michael is getting more and more uncomfortable—I lost it—I picked up the house phone on the wall, asked to be connected to the ER and told the nurse on the phone, “find that Dr. Parker and light a fire under him—tell him to call the pharmacy NOW.” Shortly thereafter the phone rang in the pharmacy and we were on our way.
We were so incredibly glad we had decided to bring the motorhome. Emmi stayed in it while we were over at the hospital and now we could just crawl into bed.
Mike feels some better today but did not feel able to drive the motorhome back to McLeod so I did!!! I managed to get us out of the parking lot with Michael’s direction and we headed home. This motorhome drives so well compared to our other one.
It is a very cool 45 degrees and raining, we are relaxing in front of the fire in the fireplace and are very glad to be home.
Posts
That sounded like a very miserable medical ordeal but not unlike so many other bad stories I have heard. Michael did well to be as patient as he was. Some of us fellers just don't cotton much to that sort of stuff. Hope they will be able to get to the bottom of the wrist problem & deal with it accordingly. Hope it's not his 'Shootin Iron' wrist......
ReplyDeleteSounds like some of the stories you hear about the Canadian Health care system. Except for the part where the fellow comes for your credit card. At least when we have to wait we know they are not charging by the hour....lol. Hope they actually found something and can get that wrist back in action.
ReplyDeleteSo, now what happens with the wrist??
ReplyDeleteYour experience reminded me of our visit to the ER at at Palm Springs hospital a few years ago. It took forever, and we too, first had to produce a credit card before treatment. We got bounced around and waited for hours. Hope Mike's hand improves with the medication.
ReplyDelete