This story could have happened anywhere, but in these times, it’s just so perfect that it happened in Tinseltown. It was just quintessentially modern Los Angeles.
The Wife™ had been complaining of chest pain for a day or two, and while I was duly concerned, it seemed that it was likely a muscle strain of some sort, and not the Grim Reaper coming for a visit. On Tuesday, however, it not only didn’t get better, but it got worse, and when she went on her routine walk to the nearby park, she was struggling with her breathing. That’s when I got concerned.
I usually am the sort of guy who says, unless you’re bleeding out or a limb is bent at an awkward angle, you’ll be fine, stop whining. Unfortunately, I’ve turned out to be wrong on occasion. Many moons ago, when we were in a rural area, one of my daughters fell off a zipline and hurt her arm. “It’s just a sprain,” I argued, and we put her in a sling.
The Wife™ wasn’t convinced, though, and made us drive two hours on a dark highway to an urgent care center, and whoops! There was indeed a fracture. This was maybe 20 years ago, but I still hear about it regularly. Let's just say, I did not win any “#1 Dad” awards that year.
Chest pains and trouble breathing, though — even a Neanderthal like me realized that it could be a serious issue. She’d been travelling a lot, and perhaps lots of long flights could have led to a blood clot? That was the chief concern of our doctor as well as an ER friend, who both said, “Go in.” So we did.
Now, I’m not a neophyte, and was fully expecting a frustrating, dull evening with some wait time, because that is the experience of emergency rooms. However, I did not expect a routine visit to last… nine hours.
NINE. NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE. Nueve, neuf, nove, neun.
I could have flown to Madrid, watched the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, or entertained the readers of RedState with numerous brilliant musings, but nooooooo.
We went in at five in the afternoon, and we didn’t get back home till well past 2 a.m. Welcome to LA; you can check in to the ER, but it might become your new home.
I even drove to my real home after a few hours to restock on supplies, grab a book and a phone charger and some snacks, and figured that if I wasn’t there watching the pot, waiting for the water to boil, I’d come back to the hospital and things would be happening.
Nope, no such luck. I returned to the ER after an hour, only to find that absolutely freaking nothing had changed.
We asked a nurse, "How come literally hundreds of people have shown up and been taken to the back, and yet we’re still sitting here?" The ER is divided into two sections, she explained; the main emergency section and the fast-track, low-acuity section. People with easy-to-treat wounds or simple infections are seen quickly and discharged, often by nurse practitioners, while those with potentially more serious issues are kept in the main area until a doctor can examine them. Ohhhh.
You mean, many people are using the ER for their routine doctor visits? I see. Make of that what you will.
We finally got taken into the back, where we sat for another hour, and then suddenly a tatted-up Joe Coolio doctor with Barry Gibb hair strolled in after our endless wait, looking like he had just come back from surfing in the 'Bu or rocking a gig with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He leaned casually against the wall. “How’s it going?” he asked through his requisite facial hair.
He perused some paperwork and concluded, “Yeah, sorry, they should have done that test when you first got here. Held things up a bit.”
Yeah, "a bit" — nine freakin’ hours, pal. What made it even worse? Our ER friend had told us that particular test was the main reason to go in, and they would do it immediately. But they didn't get to it for nine hours?!
AUGGGHHH.
I know I sound pretty snide about Dr. Grey’s Anatomy, but I actually ended up liking him. Can’t lie, he was pretty cool. I’ve discovered over time that one can have resentment for physicians for this or that reason, but when the stuff hits the fan, all of a sudden, you have enormous respect for them. They literally can stand between life and death.
After this endless ordeal, they did not detect a blood clot, which was the main concern, nor did they uncover any weird heart problems; it’s probably a bad strain or something else. The Wife™ is still experiencing pain, and we’ll have to figure out what that’s all about, but the urgency at least is gone for the moment.
She feels a tiny bit silly for “putting us through that,” but I’m standing firmly with her on this one. It could have been something extremely serious, and if we’d erred on the side of complacency, bad things could have happened. As frustrating as the Kafka-esque experience was, now at least we know she’s not being hit by a deadly heart or lung condition.
My takeaway? I’m not even sure. Can I blame Gavin Newsom and the Democrats, as I’d surely like to? Not really. Yes, this happened in California, but it could have gone down anywhere in America, or even the world. Our advances in medicine are so incredible, but they’ve also made things more complicated, and of course, there’s the endless bureaucracy and papers to sign. I’d still rather be here than in England or Canada, however, where we’d probably get an appointment... next month.
As sucky as it was, in the end I’m grateful that we have some of the best medical care on the planet — even if it took (did I mention this?) nine hours to get. My father-in-law in Jamaica recently experienced some health scares, and although I love JA and many other countries, let’s just say, the level of care is entirely different.
When my kids were young, we ended up in the ER numerous times, due to everything from basketball injuries to concussions, and while it was never fun, it was sure better than the alternative — not having an emergency room to go to.
Nevertheless, I hope it’s a long, long time before I ever have to go back to one again.
