Sorry for the radio silence the last few days. I no sooner got back in the habit of blogging (mostly) every day when I found myself in the hospital once again. It was supposed to be a quick in-and-out for some stat labs and a CT scan.
Problem #1: why is it necessary to go to the hospital ER for stat labs and a timely CT scan? Please explain to me why the more money and technology we throw at "health" "care", the shittier the actual healthcare?
Oh:
Regardless, like a good little boy I go toddling off to the ER. They do the labs and the CT scan in good time, then we get stuck in a room to wait. And wait. And wait. This is stat?
When it starts getting close to my meal time, we remind the nurse that I am diabetic and is there any possibility of food without my wife having to make a BK run? Sure! Here's a sorry-ass vending machine sandwich.
Which brings us to Problem #2:
There is no provision for food in the ER holding cells... er... rooms. I meant to say rooms. Debbie could always go to the cafeteria or out for fast food. I didn't have that luxury.
So I finally get my "stat" results. Nothing. The CT showed some slight thickening of my appendix, but otherwise, nada. But out of an abundance of caution I was put on no food/no drink and (big surprise) admitted. Except there were no beds. It would take until after 1am the next day for a room to be "available" (see Problem #4 below). We told them that if they admitted me, I would need someone to hook me up to dialysis at some point during the night.
Problem #3: The hospital has zero peritoneal dialysis personnel or equipment. It's all done through an outside company that shows up when they damn well feel like it if they show up at all. In my case, when they damn well felt like it turned out to be the next afternoon. Of course the only dialysis machine they had didn't work, and someone had to go somewhere outside the hospital to find another one. I was finally on dialysis more than 24 hours late. Which also meant yer another over-night stay.
For some labs.
And a CT.
Problem #4: While we were there doing nothing for days, we went for a walk around the floor I was on. Empty room after empty room after empty room. Entire wings of empty rooms. Yet I was forced to sit in an ER holding cell... dammit! Room! It was a room! ...for close to 12 hours to wait for a room to be available. Did they suddenly discharge hundreds of patients the night before? I suspect "staffing issues". Refer again the graph above and tell me where the real "staffing issue" is.
You may ask, "What the hell was wrong with you?" As it turns out, not a damn thing. What we were seeing in my drain bags (I'll spare you the gruesome details) cleared on its own.
Can you say "Cluster-fuck"?
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