Wednesday, October 22, 2008

ER Frustration

My father upgraded my cell phone for my birthday to one that can check my email. We went to Circuit City, bought the phone, went out to his trcuk, where he called to make sure the new number worked.... and that's all he remembers until nearly five minutes later. What happened was: he drove out onto the frontage road of 290, made a noise, and lost consciousness. After grabbing the wheel and narrowly avoiding several cars, trees, people, and whatever else was out there, I was finally able to get the truck in park on Brodie. It was scary and I thought he was dead. But he came to, refused to go to the hospital, and drove home in a loopy fog (which he also doesn't remember). My mom came home and together we were able to convince him to got to the ER.
This is where everything would appear to be great. We were immediately taken back and his insurance information was taken. He was still foggy so my mom and I had to fill in the details of medical history. We were moved back into the bed area of the ER and they took blood and hooked him up to a heart monitor. They also took him in for a cat scan. A doctor came in and said that they were admiting him for overnight observation and an MRI. It sounds good, right? Fast, reasonably efficient. At no point did anyone actually examine him. Nobody checked his eyes, which were at pinpoints; checked his color, which was super pale; or asked him any of the stroke questions. The doctor didn't even touch him, and we only saw the guy once - for less than a minute. Not only that, once we got admitted, the nurse decided it was too late to get the MRI to determine if he had had a stroke and rescheduled it for the morning. At several times, I tried to bring all these things up, but we never saw the same person twice. So, once the question was asked and concerned logged (or not), we never heard from that person again. It was completely frustrating and I don't know what to do.
My dad got plenty of attention, but no care. And I'm scared that something is seriously wrong, but because he wasn't examined, it won't be addressed.

1 comment:

  1. Wow. Your dad sounds a lot like mine--still insists one of his heart attacks was bad KFC chicken.

    Hope they sort out what happened, and that he listens to their instructions. Sad that that passes for health care, when you can actually get it though.

    Nick

    ReplyDelete

About Me

I was born and reared in Austin, Texas, where I attended three elementary schools, three middle schools, one high school, and one university. I've backpacked through Europe, gone on an archeological dig in the Belizean rainforest, scuba dived through the Atlantic reefs, and skydived over San Marcos. And, while hang-gliding turned out not to be for me, I did give it a shot.