This weekend Johnny had some pain in his lower chest (right where esophagus meets stomach) when swallowing, especially liquids. It worsened from Friday to Sunday, so we went to Urgent Care, as he reported on his blog yesterday. Obviously they can’t do much there so going from his symptoms (just pain when swallowing, no pain when resting and no nausea or vomiting), they told us he had esophagitis and prescribed Prevacid. We filled it, he took one and managed to force down a bit of pasta later that night. Monday he woke up with the same pain, which was worse when he drank thin liquids like water - Maalox didn’t help the pain but it didn’t hurt as much going down. He took another Prevacid and after a few more hours called the Urgent Care back to let them know that his pain was actually getting more intense. They told us to go to the ER. So begins the saga…
Monday
5:00pm - Arrive at a very packed Riverside ER and register with a nurse. Sit and wait. Johnny starts hyperventilating which scares the hell out of me. I go crying to a nurse who helps him calm down, but doesn’t expedite our case. Darn.
6:00pm - Go back to triage, get vitals taken, get sent back to lobby. Sit and wait. Talk about the Seahawks and Red Sox to take our minds off of everything. Johnny is in pain sitting up, and just wants to lay back a little bit. Unfortunately, hospital waiting rooms are even more uncomfortable than airports.
9:00pm - Get called back to a room. ER lobby is almost empty now. See a nurse who asks Johnny the same questions as registration nurse and triage nurse.
9:15pm - Johnny gets IV. Probably not a moment too soon, as he has barely eaten or drunk anything in about 48 hours by now.
10:00pm - 5 full hours after arriving at ER, finally see a doctor. He asks Johnny the same “registration” questions that the registration nurse, triage nurse, and first ER nurse. Looks at Johnny for about 20 minutes, and tells us that someone will bring some Maalox with Lidocaine to him and orders a chest x-ray. Doctor seems confused that Johnny is not throwing up. Off-handedly dismisses Johnny’s insistence that the pain is BAD when swallowing, but almost non-existant when not swallowing.
11:30pm - After I go bug the nurses at the desk, someone finally brings the Maalox. Tastes horrible (fortunately I didn’t have to drink it!).
11:45pm - Johnny goes in for chest xray. I call my mom and cry. I’m so scared and frustrated and pissed. You’re never too old for mommy sometimes.
Tuesday
12:15am - Johnny gets back from chest xray.
12:30am - Doctor comes back in and says chest xray and bloodwork are clean (whew!) Says he will have someone bring water in for Johnny to see if the Lidocaine helped with the pain
1:00am - After going to look for a glass of water that no one brought, Doctor comes back in. Asks how the drink went, we tell him it didn’t. Johnny tries to drink, doubles over in pain. Doctor strongly suggests that we stay overnight (which we did NOT want to do). Says he has talked to a gastroenterologist who claims she will be in at 5am and will get Johnny into endoscopy first thing in the morning. We reluctantly agree to stay, because we are assured that if we don’t we’ll have to make an outpatient appointment that could be up to a week later. We’re frustrated at how long we’ve been there and tell him so, and he says that all other ER’s in the area are not accepting ambulances so people who come to Riverside are often pushed to the back of the line when an ambulance comes in. Note to self: never come to Riverside ER again unless I’m in an ambulance. Ask Doc what he thinks could be wrong, and he tells us could be gastro-enteritis, ulcer, even stomach cancer. Thanks for the worries, we didn’t have enough already! Doctor tells us we’ll get moved into an observation room “sometime within the next hour, it’s really not that important to get us moved” Hmmph.
2:15am (over 9 hours since we’ve arrived) - Get into ER observation room. Johnny asks if he can have pain meds b/c his lower chest is now hurting when at rest. They give him Pepcid - a STOMACH pain med even though his stomach doesn’t hurt. And they give it to him through his IV, so it doesn’t even hit his esophagus.
3:30am - Johnny wakes up, notices that IV bag is completely empty and says that the pain is back. I get a nurse who puts a new bag on and gives Johnny a little bit of morphine.
6:15am - Nurse comes in to do morning vitals. I ask if there’s any word from endoscopy, and she tells me they don’t open till 7am. What??
9:00am - New nurse pops in. We ask if there’s any word from endoscopy. Still none. Johnny says pain is back, so she gives him a bit more morphine. It takes the edge off but doesn’t kill it completely. Also notices that the IV bag that’s been there for 5 1/2 hours is not dripping at all. So we’ve been here all night for nothing - he wasn’t even getting fluids.
9:15am - I show up at endoscopy and ask when Johnny is scheduled. They don’t have him on the schedule, but will try to work him in between outpatients. I lose it. I’m going on about 45 minutes of sleep and I just let the poor nurse have it.
9:30am - I’m back in ER letting our nurse have it.
9:40am - Squeaky wheel gets the grease! Someone comes to take Johnny to endoscopy. I apologize profusely to the ER nurse.
10:00am - Johnny is in a waiting cell in endoscopy. I have apologized profusely to this nurse as well. Someone comes in to tell him what to expect - “5 to 10 minute procedure”. We find out that the gastroenterologist that the ER doc talked to last night, who was supposed to be in at 5am, hasn’t even come in yet. No wonder no one knew Johnny was supposed to be there.
11:00am - Johnny comments on what a boring episode of 24 his day would make. Glad to hear the sense of humor coming back.
11:15am - Still in waiting cell. Someone comes to take us back to ER, thinking we’re done. Does no one in this hospital communicate with each other?
11:30am - Finally Johnny gets taken into procedure room. I go to waiting room for “5 to 10 minutes”
12:25pm - Johnny is finally done. Apparently they meant “50 to 100 minutes”. Johnny is still loopy. We are told that a nurse will be in to check on him then the doctor will come talk to us.
12:35pm - Nurse comes as expected.
12:55pm - Someone comes to take us back to ER. We say no, doctor hasn’t been in yet. They want to take Johnny and just have me talk to doctor. Uhhhh, no. Johnny would like to know what’s up too. He’s no longer loopy, just pissed.
1:15pm - Doctor finally comes to talk to us. Johnny has esophagitis - an infection and swelling in his esophagus. Kind of like strep or tonsillitis, but lower. They did some cultures to find out what kind of infection it is. It’s obvious he wants to tell us what he found and leave. He is patient enough to answer our questions, but just barely. He prescribes something that will coat Johnny’s esophagus but do nothing for pain, and a liquid diet. Obviously the *5* people we’ve already talked to didn’t tell him that it HURTS WHEN HE SWALLOWS and that [U]liquids hurt the most[/U]. What do they write on those charts if no one looks at them?
1:30pm - We finally get through to someone - the endoscopy nurse manager. He’s the first person we’ve talked to that seems to understand that until the problem can be cleared up, Johnny needs some pain medication in order to eat and drink and be comfortable enough to sleep. He is our champion and calls the ER to tell them what’s up.
1:45pm - We get back to our room in ER after being told that no, the gastroenterologist won’t be giving us the prescription, that will be up to some new ER doc that will look at Johnny’s charts and go from there. Doesn’t make sense to me, but whatever. As long as we can get the hell outta there - we’re coming up on hour 21. Anyway, when we get to our room we talk to a Patient Care Rep (basically a poor nurse who has to listen to all the disgruntled patients). We tell her the whole story - the long waits, the promise of the “first thing” endoscopy, the string of people who don’t seem to understand where Johnny’s pain is or why. She goes to get the ER doc to give us prescriptions and get us out.
2:00pm - ER Dr. I’m-the-biggest-fucking-asshole-dickhead-in-the-universe-Yamarick comes in. Obviously he has been told that we are very frustrated and he’s decided to make us even more so. Starts going on about how we have an HMO and the fact that we even got into endoscopy was a miracle, usually we’d have to wait a month or more and be referred by a primary care physician which we don’t have. Basically accuses us of pulling strings to be where we are and talking down to us like we’re 4 year olds. At one point I tell him he’s being incredibly patronizing and he needs to stop. Johnny and I finally stop arguing with him so he’ll leave and just let us out. Johnny is so frustrated he’s crying, and I am shaking with rage. We have just been accused of something, not sure what, after we followed all the rules and were silly enough to believe another doctor! We tell the patient rep that we’ll be filing a complaint against the doctor, the ER and telling all of our friends not to go there.
2:30pm - Nurse comes in with prescriptions for painkillers (finally we appear to have gotten through to someone!). As soon as she gets Johnny’s IV out we practically sprint for the door. Fortunately we don’t see Dr. I’m-the-biggest-fucking-asshole-dickhead-in-the-universe again, because I probably would have been dragged from the building by security.
At least the story has a happy ending. Johnny has a treatable ailment and NOT an ulcer or even acid reflux like everyone seemed to think. We’re home now and he’s comfortable after taking several different pain medications. He’s able to drink water and he’s already eaten some pudding, cheese and a strawberry smoothie. In a few days we’ll find out what he needs to do to kill the infection and now we can put this miserable experience behind us. I just wanted to let you all know what kind of treatment you may get if you go to Riverside ER - although I should point out that all the nurses we dealt with were incredibly nice and patient, even if they didn’t seem to be talking to each other. Overall we felt like we were shuffled around, placated with people telling us that things would happen when they wouldn’t, and incredibly patronized and not listened to. And really all this ordeal has taught us is that unless you have a life-threatening problem, you’re not going to get much help.
