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May. 25th, 2007 08:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaSimple ways to make the ER experience more pleasant and tolerable:
1. Wear an ID proclaiming that you are an employee of the medical school.
2. To the ER doctor only (for God's sake, never to a nurse or clerk), reply "Actually, it's Dr. Wald."
3. Carry a comforting bag of frozen soybeans wrapped in an old T-shirt.
And, most importantly:
4. Turn out to not actually have broken your thumb.
That's the story, in a nutshell, of what I did from 11pm to 1am. (I'm amazed that I got out of a big-city ER in two hours! They have a fantastic step-down system of separately staffed "urgent care" (me), emergency room, and shock/trauma.)
We were packing to go out of town this weekend. I decided I wanted to empty and re-use a big canvas bag we had stowed in one of our non-working fireplaces. The bag jammed in place, and when I gave a ferocious tug, my hand flew up and smashed, hard, into the brick surround of the fireplace.
For several minutes, all I could do was pace up and down frantically waving my hand in the air. (Pain gate theory! The same neurons carry the sensation of movement and the sensation of pain, so it's helpful to give them something to do other than hurt.) I noticed that the pain was accompanied by numbness, and, after a little while, quite a bit of swelling. When it didn't get better after about ten minutes on an ice pack, I headed off to the ER. My finger continued to feel a strange mix of numbness and pain.
My employee status didn't jump me over the line, or anything, but it was nice to be treated like a co-worker rather than a random member of the public who was stupid enough to suffer an idiotic injury. The triage nurse, especially, was friendly and collegial. We traded broken finger stories from our pasts. She walked me over to the urgent care section, where she explained that I would be seen more quickly. There, I saw a resident for a few seconds and an attending for a bit longer. They ordered X-rays.
By the time I got through X-ray, I was beginning to suspect that my thumb wasn't broken. The numbness hadn't been replaced by blinding pain, and the constant icing had brought much of the swelling down. So I wasn't too surprised when the resident popped back in and said, "Just a big bruise!" I was embarrassed, but he assured me that, given that I couldn't see through my skin myself, I was justified in a trip to the ER.
This morning my thumb is still really, really sore. And bruised. But I can bend it, and I can do basic, elementary things like putting on my clothes. I feel very grateful.
1. Wear an ID proclaiming that you are an employee of the medical school.
2. To the ER doctor only (for God's sake, never to a nurse or clerk), reply "Actually, it's Dr. Wald."
3. Carry a comforting bag of frozen soybeans wrapped in an old T-shirt.
And, most importantly:
4. Turn out to not actually have broken your thumb.
That's the story, in a nutshell, of what I did from 11pm to 1am. (I'm amazed that I got out of a big-city ER in two hours! They have a fantastic step-down system of separately staffed "urgent care" (me), emergency room, and shock/trauma.)
We were packing to go out of town this weekend. I decided I wanted to empty and re-use a big canvas bag we had stowed in one of our non-working fireplaces. The bag jammed in place, and when I gave a ferocious tug, my hand flew up and smashed, hard, into the brick surround of the fireplace.
For several minutes, all I could do was pace up and down frantically waving my hand in the air. (Pain gate theory! The same neurons carry the sensation of movement and the sensation of pain, so it's helpful to give them something to do other than hurt.) I noticed that the pain was accompanied by numbness, and, after a little while, quite a bit of swelling. When it didn't get better after about ten minutes on an ice pack, I headed off to the ER. My finger continued to feel a strange mix of numbness and pain.
My employee status didn't jump me over the line, or anything, but it was nice to be treated like a co-worker rather than a random member of the public who was stupid enough to suffer an idiotic injury. The triage nurse, especially, was friendly and collegial. We traded broken finger stories from our pasts. She walked me over to the urgent care section, where she explained that I would be seen more quickly. There, I saw a resident for a few seconds and an attending for a bit longer. They ordered X-rays.
By the time I got through X-ray, I was beginning to suspect that my thumb wasn't broken. The numbness hadn't been replaced by blinding pain, and the constant icing had brought much of the swelling down. So I wasn't too surprised when the resident popped back in and said, "Just a big bruise!" I was embarrassed, but he assured me that, given that I couldn't see through my skin myself, I was justified in a trip to the ER.
This morning my thumb is still really, really sore. And bruised. But I can bend it, and I can do basic, elementary things like putting on my clothes. I feel very grateful.
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Date: 2007-05-25 12:28 pm (UTC)I'm glad your thumb isn't broken. I'm glad that the ER visit went smoothly.