What a day!
Two days after her colonoscopy, Sue was experiencing some alarming pain and discomfort. She called our family doctor who had a cancellation, and was in there being poked and prodded by 10:30.
The verdict: "You could have a perforated colon, so go straight to ER for an X-ray. Do not eat or drink anything."
We were there by 11 o'clock. It didn't take long to get the X-ray, but then we waited for more 8 hours to be seen by the doctor.
I have told you that our hospital is a little town hospital that is almost more like a clinic than a hospital. The ER is a one-doctor situation. The waiting room was full. The overflow waiting room was full. We were moved to a third waiting room, which also began to fill up.
And so we sat ... and waited ... and waited ... and sat.
For more than 8 hours!
Did I mention that our little hospital has no cafeteria? Shauna offered to bring us something after work. You might recall that Sue was told not to eat or drink. While I was under no such restrictions, it didn't seem right, so I told Shauna not to bother. Sue overrode and told Sha to bring something for me regardless. In that case, I opted for coffee. I kept track of Sha through Find Friends and just about perfectly timed meeting her at the front door.
That was six hours into the wait. Little did we know that we would be there for another three hours.
Sue finally saw the doctor after more than another 2 hours, 8 hours after we had arrived. He apologized for the wait before poking, prodding. Before going off to read the X-ray, he brought us ginger ale with ice.
The X-ray revealed no tear, so he ordered bloodwork, and we waited some more, but the results, fortunately, revealed no cause for concern.
So nine and a half hours after arriving at the ER, and more than ten hours after leaving home to see our family doctor, we were home.
All of the time that we waited, we thought about how our little ER rushed her by ambulance to the big Ottawa ER for emergency surgery. Thankfully, the worst outcome did not eventuate this time. While we are still not sure what has caused the distress, at least the big concerns have been ruled out.
On my part, I did not get around to reading your blogs or replying to your comments. Sorry about that, but life intervened.
