I really, really hope the additions they are making to Onslow Memorial Hospital improve the way the emergency room works tremendously because it really needs work.

A little over a week ago, I had an incredible pain on my side. People who know me know that I have to really be hurting in order to take my sorry butt to the emergency room, or even a doctor (which I know isn’t good either). So, I called my parents who took me to the emergency room. After six hours, all they did was take my blood for testing and made me do a pee test. A couple hours to even get into the ER and then four more hours having those two things done and just waiting with pain in the hallway of the ER because there were no rooms left that were empty.

After six hours, the doctor said my blood tests looked normal and said he didn’t see anything. He did say something like, ”Maybe there is a cyst on your ovary.” But, he sent me home anyway. While I was there, they did mention maybe having an X-ray done, but after six hours, that never happened.

So, I went home. And, what do you know … three or four days later, I had the same excruciating pain in my right side - even more excrutiating. So, I went to the ER again. There’s nothing like pouring more money into the place that didn’t really do all it could to treat me right in the first place. So, I signed in and waited in the waiting room a second time.

If you have never been to the ER, this is the basic routine. You have to fill out a pink slip with your name and your problem and then stamp it with a time and place it in the basket. Then, just wait for them to call you in. When they do call you in, it’s just to check your temperature and blood pressure. Then, you have to wait again and are called in to registration. Then, you have to wait again and are finally brought into the ER.

But first, there are a few things I didn’t get about waiting. First, they go in the natural order that the papers are filled out, which in normal situations I think is admirable. But in an ER, I think it’s not. There are some people in the ER who are obviously not hurting as badly as others. If I was one who was not in pain at the moment, I would have no problem with them calling someone in first who was in excruciating pain before me. I’d like to think others would have the same heartfelt courtesy.

Second, they give you a beeper which also sounds like a reasonable way to move things along more quickly. I am a little germophobic at times. I’m sure they sterilize these beepers when people turn them in (at least, I hope they do). But, I really don’t like the idea of holding a beeper that a bunch of sick people have been holding. Afterall, I am in the ER.

Third, the second time I went to the ER, I was sitting in the waiting room and this poor girl sat next to me who was just sicker than a dog, coughing and sneezing and eyes watering. I just thought to myself, “I’m sorry she feels bad, but I really don’t want to be sitting next to her coughing constantly while I’m here in pain not knowing what all that’s about. All I need is to have whatever she has too.” It would be great to have a separate waiting room or something where the flu-like or contagiously sick people can wait separate from the other people who don’t need to be getting the flu or whatever else in addition to what they already have.

So anyway, I finally made it to the ER the second time in four days, and after about six hours again, the doctor told me that I had a huge (15 cm) cystic mass on my right ovary. They actually did a pelvic sonogram this time and gave me lots of pain medication. That would explain the excrutiating pain part that I had been in off and on for that whole week. And, again I had to wait in the hallway because no rooms were open. The doctor was like, “They didn’t do an X-ray or pelvic exam when you were here last time?” We all know, had they done that, I would have known about my condition a little sooner. That wonderful second ER doctor sent me to a gynecologist near the hospital the next morning to follow up about the mass. That guy just put his hand on my side in that area and said, “Oh yeah, I feel it.” That’s all he needed to do to find something wrong. If that was the case, I’m pretty sure the ER doctor could have “just felt it” the first time I went to the ER too.

They keep saying the ER has gotten better over the years. But, this whole scenario happened to me back in 2000 when I had gall stones and they didn’t catch it in the ER the first visit either.

I know some people make their illnesses out to be more than they really are, but I’d like to think that the majority of us wouldn’t drag our sorry butts into the ER and wait six hours unless we really thought something was seriously wrong. I’d like to think that they are doing everything possible to find out what’s wrong with me, and I just don’t think (judging from both times I have gone to the Onslow Memorial ER) that is the case. Or, maybe they just want you to come back, so they can get some extra money out of you. We all know most of us can’t just pay the many separate medical bills that will be rolling in shortly right off the bat. I’m one of those that has to make many very small payments. That second time I went back to the ER in 2000, they admitted me to the hospital right then to have surgery. They said there was no way I should go home. Funny, cause a week or so prior, they actually sent me home.    

I really don’t like to complain, especially about a place whose main purpose is to keep us healthy and relieve our pain in the first place. But, there is seriously something wrong with the whole way the ER is run. I really, really pray that things get better for everyone who makes that annoying trip to the ER when the new addition finally opens. And, I pray that I never have to go through it again.

As for me, they are sending me to the Leo Jenkins Cancer Center in Greenville this week for precautionary reasons. It’s usually not cancer for people like me who are under 40, but the doctor here said that it’s best to be operated on by a cancer doctor because sometimes they don’t really know for sure if it’s cancer or not until they do the surgery and open you up. I think my cyst has erupted because I don’t have the stabbing, excrutiating pain that I had last week. It’s more of an uncomfortable, heavy feeling in my pelvic region.

It’s funny how things like this always happen. You finally get a little caught up financially and a wrench gets thrown into things to screw it all back up. But I know (and probably will realize even more after going to the cancer center this week) that there are people who are much worse off than I am at this point. So, I just pray extra hard for those people and their families and just try to keep my complaining to a minimum. But, I thought I’d share this one complaint with you all first.

P.S. I forgot to mention that the second time I went back to the emergency room, they could not find my records from when I was there four days earlier. I’m not even sure if they eventually finally found them or not because they don’t even really TELL you ANYTHING unless you ask them what the hell they are doing or giving you yourself. And you’re telling me they are organized? Sometimes, the best courtesy is letting the patient in on every detail. Afterall, it is their own body and life that you are dealing with. Why wouldn’t they want to know?