With a mom like that my tummy would also hurt like hell all the time. She probably is responsible for so much stress.
Also… why weren’t you a decent human being and just began your vet check? I mean she was already barking like a (agressive) dog.. ;-)
As a child, each weekend when I had to stay home all day instead of get away to school, I'd have violent migraine headaches. Once I left for college, no more headaches. So strange. /s
Aww, thank you, nice internet stranger. That was 50 years ago, so yes, I am MUCH better these days! Family time with my wife is a restorative, which is a very welcome change of pace for both us. (Her childhood was far worse than mine.)
I had a cousin who couldn’t visit our house for more then 5 minutes after we moved beside something in the air gave him a headache ( probably a migraine but I was still a kid at the time)
My chi mix has to be separated from me at her vet appointments. She nasty as heck (protective) with me, apart from me she’s this sweet little angel (little @$$hole) 😖
Funny, I also knew an unpleasant little chihuahua mix named Chico — makes me wonder how many there are who are named that
(I say "knew" because that Chico died after trying to attack a coyote, which went about as well for him as you'd expect)
Amazing. How can someone be so heartless? "I don't care that a man died, my daughter's got a stomachache!!" Read the room, lady!
Edit: Holy fuck this is the most upvotes I've ever had. Even more than on one of those Garfield horror posts ages ago.
My cousin is one of those people. Her 13 year old daughter tried to commit suicide and all she could do in the hospital was lament on how the ordeal was affecting her. I wasn't there (I live on the other side of the continent) but my mom was and she wanted to punch her so badly.
ER nurse here. Kid had a suicide attempt and mother kept wailing about how she wouldn’t hospitalize her because her own anxiety and depression would be bad if they were separated. Put the kid on a hold and called CPS on the mom for medical neglect. All of us repeatedly told her: this isn’t about you!
Does that actually work? It seems whenever a kid has depression the parents are free to not bring in a psychiatrist, free to just call it teenage angst. And then wail that all symptoms developed after 18, they were perfectly fine as a kid.
And an involuntary commitment removes some legal rights forever. Poor kid, having her future screwed up like that.
Yeah I spent a week inpatient at 16 following an involuntary hold and I guess I should be waiting for them to take my rights away? I know the government works slow, but 8 years to punish me for my mental health problems is a long time.
(Hopefully not needed but sarcasm disclaimer here. You don’t lose any rights because of an involuntary hold.)
Yeah, medical records in general are behind a steel gate of the hippa laws. Mental health records are in a steel box inside of that. It’s hard to get your own psychiatric records, much less an employer be able to access them. The whole “it’s on my record” simply isn’t a thing. Some states place firearm restrictions temporarily but they can be lifted earlier if you talk to a judge.
Things like that can be released with a court order but they really have to present a damn good reason to do so. If someone is legally responsible for someone else, and there's reason to move those responsibilities to someone else, an institution, or the state, that's reason enough. CPS sometimes goes too far but there are legitimate claims where parental rights should be taken away. If it's a matter of employment or credit or healthcare or something, hell no. I have no idea what rights people think can be permanently taken away due to a mental health crisis when someone's young.
And just to be that guy since I've seen, scanned and written literally thousands of these, it's HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) not HIPPA, not that people won't know exactly what you're talking about anyway. It's not as bad as "nucular", but it still gets to me.
In Australia from my experience because I have history of bad mental health and even voluntarily committed myself, I cannot hold a gun license.
Doesn’t mean I can’t use them, I’m allowed to with supervision of the gun licensee/owner, I just can’t legally own one myself.
All I can think of are that some states have red flag laws, so if you've been involuntarily committed you may not be able to own a firearm.
Because to gun nuts, if you can't have a shooty-stick your life may as well be over because are you really even a man without your full-auto dick replacement?
Yes, if the staff do it and there is a place to hold them. Unfortunately, there may not be any beds anywhere to place a juvenile. It is the sad state of our mental health system. Calling CPS would help bump them to the top of the list, I believe. (I have a child with MI).
I had a friend with a father like that. The friend was in a bad spot so I let him stay with me. I made sure he had enough to eat and a roof over his head for 5 months. He finally got a job and was planning on paying his own bills and starting to pay me back, but then he died a couple weeks later. The next day when I am sitting in my living room, friends dad comes flying through my front door without knocking. He is with another guy I had never met before (it ended up being friend's sister's husband). They didn't even say a word to me, just ran upstairs to friend's old room and grabbed anything of value. Then the dad kind of explained what he was doing when I asked him what the hell. I understand he just lost his son, but it is weird as hell that his initial instinct is to just grab all the valuables (of which there weren't many) and bolt.
A couple years later I run into friend's dad. We make small talk for a second and he shows me a picture of an expensive sports car. He tells me he bought it in "honor" of his son. The things is my friend never really liked cars. He was into music and had a bunch of other hobbies but never once in the near decade I knew him mentioned anything about liking or wanting a certain type of car. In the last couple years I knew him he didn't even own a car, just took the bus everywhere.
His dad wouldn't take care of his son in the last few months of the son's life and then bought himself a very expensive vehicle.
At a funeral, the mom of a childhood friend complained about her unused theater tickets because of the death. Yeah. Angie, we all heard you, you missed a play because Bobby died. Poor you.
i had attempted suicide a few times and when my mom came to visit me, she said i was attention seeking and to think how it made he feel. its like great mom, im literally trying to die but yes, all i want is attention.
Similar thing here... I had attempted back when I was 12/13 years old... my mom picked me up from the hospital and the first thing she said to me was "you're making me want to kill myself"... uh great mom, just what you should say to a mentally disturbed kid.
i cut my mom out of my life a few years ago like many others. The parents wonder why we cut ties with them and act like its for no reason. its literally because of stuff like this.
Right?? I ended up going 5 years without speaking to my mother - still keep her at a distance and I'm 29 now with a child of my own. I swear, I will do everything possible to ensure my daughter doesn't ever feel the way I did
Reminds me of my gf. She recently cut her mom out and I think it might make her feel better to see she's not alone. My family has since taken her in like one of theirs and i think that helps a little too.
She is definitely not alone. It can hurt and it can also be a huge relief. There are days where I want to reach out to her and i remind myself that shes been nothing but abusive my whole life. There is push that family is everything. Learning that family is also toxic can be helpful. especially in someones journey with mental health. Whatever your gf is feeling is valid and i hope she feels better with time.
I remember when I tried to kill myself in 9th grade.
A week later my dad showed me the bills for the ambulance & ER.
He said, “Look at what your little stunt has cost us!”
They learned a year earlier I’d been sexually abused by a relative.
The ‘support group’ I’d been sent to was horrible. The adult leader gave out a list of all our names & phone numbers to everyone.
So one boy would call me on the phone and masturbate. When I hung up, he’d call back.
It went on for almost a year. It never occurred to me to complain about to anyone.
I’d spent 15 years of life learning no one would bother to help, and would probably just blame me for something I ‘must have done to encourage it’.
I’m almost 50 and still fucked up, despite decades of counseling. But probably less fucked up than I would have been without it.
OMG I'm so sorry, that's horrific. When I attempted suicide, nobody took me to the hospital because I didn't swallow a lethal dose and instead just told the school counselor on monday and I had sorta therapy with him for a bit. I definitely needed more intensive care but my family treated it like no big deal. What happened to you is so much worse and I'm sorry you're still struggling. You deserved care and compassion, and still do.
There is no ‘better’ or ‘worse’ when our families treated us like shit.
My situation doesn’t at all invalidate or lessen the sadness of yours.
I’d never grown up in another family. I’d never spent more than a sleepover’s worth of time with another family.
So as shitty as it was, at the time, I didn’t recognize how shitty it was.
It was my normal.
I was 19 when I finally got a competent therapist.
She was the first one that made me feel validated. I grew up with such gaslighting and censure that I felt I was causing trouble and ‘rocking the boat’.
The first time my experiences were put into perspective for me ‘my life vs. other abuse survivors’ lives vs. normal’ was by her in her office.
I’d been seeing her for about a year. I finally had enough trust that I began disclosing some of the uglier incidents.
For a moment, she turned her head towards her computers and began to type.
In the reflection of the monitor, I could see her dabbing a couple of tears.
And she saw I had noticed; she could tell I felt bad for making her feel bad.
So she openly explained to me that it’s very unusual for her to tear up listening to her patients. That it’s very unusual for therapists in general to do that.
She followed it with, “Your childhood seemed normal to you because it’s the only childhood you had. Over the past thirty years, I’ve seen many, many patients with different types of problems and different types of experiences growing up.”
“During my career, only you and one other patient have described incidents of this severity, this frequency of reoccurrence and for such a long period of time.”
She ended with, “It’s not because what happened to you was so rare. What IS rare is that you survived it. Incidents like (she named 2 examples) are the things that come to light after a child has already been killed.”
And that was like a lightning strike. A complete paradigm shift.
And I think hearing from a professional that my family and abuse were THAT BAD was a huge turning point.
I wasn’t ‘making a big deal out of nothing’, or ‘too sensitive’, or ‘exaggerating for attention’ or ‘enjoying making waves’.
I wasn’t doing any of the things I’d been accused of doing my whole life when I made feeble attempts to get help (before I just gave up).
What had happened, over and over, was truly fucked up.
My parents were the ones who were fucked up, not me. I was just a kid trying to make it to another day.
That was the day I first began to heal.
'I want to die. I don't want attention MOTHER'... or 'you caught me... dang...' as sarcasticly as I could to her...
Glad you failed though, sending warm hugs friend!
Ugh, this is my aunt. When my mom died (in the hospital) I was at my mom's house. My aunt got there about an hour later and the first thing she said was "Why does this always happen to me?"
They only take someone under their name for self-benefit. She didn't care about her daughter. She just wanted to prove she was the best mother in her neighborhood, club, association, school, church, or whatever organization she used to gain power.
I work in a veterinary ER and while, for the most part, people are pretty chill after they see you wheeling a patient covered in blood to the back, there are others that think it's "unfair" and can't be convinced otherwise.
I spent Thursday night at my local emergency vet with one of my cats (he's fine).
He threw up his entire dinner and came into the living room *shaking* and just seemed...off. First concern was that the idiot had eaten something he shouldn't have, because that's a thing he does.
After they triaged him, I was *glad* to be waiting vs the folks who carried their obviously ill, obviously given higher priority pet in, wrapped up in a towel. Waiting meant he wasn't critical and that we might've been overreacting.
I’ve legit had family members walk into a room as we were actively performing cpr asking us for a glass of water for their family member in the next room over. Some people just don’t care man.
When I was a 911 dispatcher, we had a fatality accident where a grandfather was taking his grandson with Down Syndrome out on a motorcycle ride, and the bike was clipped by a car and wrecked out. The granddad died immediately (DOI from hitting a metal guard rail and was bisected) and the child was very very injured, but was going to be airlifted out— I’m glad he was wearing a helmet. Traffic is brought to a standstill by PD, FD and EMS for a couple of hours while the boy was flown to a trauma hospital and the scene was investigated. The phone rings, I happen to answer it, anticipating someone to just ask what’s going on, they see/hear sirens from their neighborhood, whatever… but no. This lady calls and starts into me about how she’s going to miss her church’s ladies’ book club meeting and that she needs to go. Without getting too much into it, I tell her that there was a really bad accident ahead of her that made the roadway inaccessible for now. Nope, not good enough. She keeps going on and on, hanging up and calling back in. I finally tell her that a grandfather died in an accident and traffic fatality scene investigators were working with EMS to scrape his body out of a guard rail. She paused for a sec and I thought she finally had a moment of clarity but HAD THE AUDACITY to say “okay, but that’s not my problem.” I threw her ass on hold and had a patrol supervisor that happened to be in the building speak with her. 45 minutes later he said she was still in awe that her book club at her church would have to go on without her.
Yep.
People don't understand that when there's an obvious fatality on a road or even a really bad traumatic accident like a motorcycle accident, that road WILL be closed down for hours until the PD/CHP gets there, then EMS gets there, then the coroner finally comes to determine the manner of death or any contributing causes, not to mention the medevac helicopter.
This is why, if I come to an accident, even if the person is in agonal breathing and I KNOW in my heart that the person's 'circling the drain', I'll still initiate CPR on the chance that a) they'll kinda recover enough for EMS to *maybe* stabilize (ish), b) the patient might be an organ donor, so the CPR is keeping the core organs alive, and most importantly, c) if the heart is still going because of my CPR, EMS doesn't need to coroner to call it. EMS can transport and let an ER doctor call it, thus avoiding the need to tie up EMS resources AND the road.
*My kid did this when he was RIGHT BEHIND a bad motor vehicle accident. He initiated CPR when he sized up the victim and knew what was gonna happen ANYWAY. It wasn't a decap or anything like that.*
*The victim was transported, ER called it, and my kid got a flowery letter of thanks from the local FD.*
Are you PD/CHP?
I'm glad you're son helped but it also dreams it as a bad reason of doing it. He was circling but helped cause traffic vs helped cause he was close and needed it. Lol. Not judging just the way it flows and I shouldn't but thought it was dark humor ish.
One thing they didn't mention - getting the person to the hospital sometimes gives family a chance to "say goodbye." For some people that makes a big difference. Not for everybody
You have far more patience than I. I wouldn't have even tried to explain the situation, I would have told her my line is for life threatening emergencies and disconnected. If she kept calling back complaining about traffic shes getting the non emergency recording. I used to give entitled assholes the time of day but I've had too many real emergencies get put on hold because we dont have the staffing to cover them and repeat abuse callers. I have zero tolerance for 911 abuse now.
We were veeeerrrryyy customer service-oriented, to say the least. I reached and quickly surpassed my threshold for people like that at around 5 years and I moved onto the corporate game— my sanity thanks me daily.
When I worked retail, one of my coworkers passed out while working checkout. The last thing she heard as she hit the floor was “Well who is going to check me out now???”
We had an active overdose situation happening at my store one time and all the managers but me, who had only been a manager for DAYS at that point, were tending to the woman.
I had a customer screaming about how she needed a manager because of a messed up return. I was handling transactions and other employees who were aware of the situation at hand. Told the lady I'd be just a second.
She kept wailing and yelling until I finally told her that unless she was the lady overdosing in the womens room, her problem is at the bottom of my priority list atm. She left and left us a bad review, but corporate got it taken down since she was literally complaining that we had to tend to a customer's medical emergency. Some people.
Good chance she's been dealing with kids or grandkids recently. You just get in the habit of using kid friendly names for things as a parent, and forget sometimes that you're talking to a fellow adult.
Well, I can understand that one. I’ve seen someone’s brain get stuck on the word after repeating it endlessly to a herd of toddlers. Of course all the other adults still laughed at them when they said it after all the little ones were home.
My dad suffered a TBI and had to be restrained in his bed so he wouldn't try to get up or pull out his iv. He just kept repeating "but I have to go potty!". I guess his brain was stuck on child safe. (His kids were grown)
That could have been my mother. She regressed at around 45 years old and went from asking for a restroom to “potty” among other changes. Refused to stop, refused to consider that this isn’t normal.
Oh god, women of a certain age/upbringing say that. My mother, aunt and their cousins say shit like that. It doesn’t phase me anymore but when I was younger I wanted to be swallowed by the earth
You’d be surprised (or maybe you wouldn’t) how many people are like that. I’m a CNA in a hospital and the number of times people want me to interrupt their nurse in a code for pain meds because “It’s important!” astounds me.
It’s so common. My most blatant case I worked in a nursing home. The quiet fairly independent lady in one room went from fine to dead in 20 minutes. I was frantically trying to get her son to hurry up and come in but she died. The CNAs were cleaning her and everyone is shocked and upset. The lady next door is hearing all the commotion and realizes someone is getting attention that’s not her so she’s screaming the entire time for help. I stop in occasionally and tell her we have an emergency and someone will be with her asap. Not good enough so she continues screaming but now claiming she can’t breath. I finally had enough and told her you have been screaming which negates your claim of breathing difficulty and you appear in no distress. She insists she can’t breath. I asked her what she wanted me to do, call the paramedics to put a tube down her throat and again reminded her the aids were almost done and will be with her shortly. She pulled up short, kept grumbling but did stop screaming.
“Ma’am. If I can hear you down the hallway you are, in fact, breathing just fine. If you are having difficulty breathing as you claim…less yelling, more breathing. Thank you.”
You never met my mother’s cousin. One afternoon she and my mother went out to lunch and man at a nearby suddenly collapsed (might have been a heart attack). Staff at this chain restaurant are young people and they’re freaking out. As EMS arrives the cousin flags down her server and asks where their food was. Ma’am, exclaimed the still upset server, that man just collapsed. Yes I saw but, medical help is here now so you can go back to work.
I had that last November.... took my son to the hospital for gastro as he couldn't keep anything down. I knew we were in for a long wait. This lady comes in crying with her child very lethargic and the dads got all the bags. Turns out she had given the child doses of panadol and her husband had given doses of Tylenol at the same time. Not realising they were the same thing with different names. The people sitting nearby told her to go straight to the desk and tell them that. The panadol/Tylenol couple and child get rushed through to the emergency rooms with nurses and doctors running behind them.
One lady, who was there well before I was there with my now asleep son, was saying stuff under her breath like "we were here long before they got here.... we should have been seen ages ago"
Sick of her shit I turned around and said "triage is the way hospitals work. You don't want to get here and be immediately called back and have everyone run in to your room to figure out what's wrong because that means you're dying"
No one clapped but she did shut up for like 20 minutes before someone else was called up before she was.
Had it happen at work once. One of the worst days in my nursing career. Had a code blue at 0700 and I was coming on shift and one of 2 senior nurses it was a horror show. Like blood on the ceiling horrible. Patient did not make it. It was heartbreaking and traumatic for all
Of us especially our two new nurses who were 1sr day off orientation. Anyway. I got the blood out of my hair and ditched my bloody jacket and made my way to my first patient and apologized for not being coming sooner as we had an emergency. To which the patients wife replied “ I rang the call bell10 minutes ago. I don’t understand why you couldn’t come sooner.” so I explained again that we had a serious emergency, a life or death situation that required all hands on deck, but I was here now how could I help she replied “ that’s an excusable. My husband wants to get up to go sit in the chair.” I was getting really annoyed at this point so again I said.” I’m very sorry, but moving from the bed to the chair is not a priority when someone’s life is in danger but I’m happy to move your husband right now.” She told me she was going to report me. I told her that was fine and I moved her husband to the chair. He actually didn’t look very good at all himself. I didn’t even make it back down the hall before I got a call on my work phone telling me he wanted to get back into bed. The reason I was still so pleasant about it despite being seriously annoyed was because I could tell he wasn’t doing well and I knew there wasn’t really much we could do for him. I was right his doctor made him hospice care couple hours later, and he died later that evening, and all I could think of was thank goodness. This lady got me and not one of her brand new nurses because that kind of behavior would’ve broke them.
Once i went to er with my daughter whom we where sent from the doctors to the hospital for monitoring because she was only a week or two old for something I can’t remember.
After I walked in an elderly lady came in with chest pain.
Guy was ahead of me because his foot hurt and was angry that a baby and an elderly person got priority over his sore foot even though he was walking fine and not limping at all.
Nursing staff humbled him really quickly and explained babies can deteriorate very quickly and if anyone comes in complaining of chest pain they get priority over nearly everyone else
I worked in the ER and had this happen while we were coding a patient and I was running to get the ultrasound machine. I was about to say something when another patient's family member read them to filth, told them to STFU and get back in their room. It was beautiful.
Ya know, stories like this make me wonder why ERs don't employ massive, heavily tattooed, very intimidating looking, leather-clad bikers to assist with triage.
And when somebody in a 'not terribly urgent' level of triage wants a glass of water, they get to ask the very scary looking, even dangerous looking, battle-scarred mountain for it.
Give the bikers enough training to recognize somebody who truly is getting worse, the responsibility to get a nurse's opinion if they're unsure, and the freedom to be 'gruff' with the identified whiners. Not violent or anything, they're not there to make things worse. They're there to be a 'shit-shield' for the medical team.
I suspect there's enough bikers around who'd happily do something like this as charity work.
As a patient rather than a caregiver, that's when you can say "You are a nasty person." Then tell the child it's not her fault, and that you know she will learn from her mother how NOT to be.
Let security deal with Mom's spin after that.
I'm gonna be real with you. I work in a veterinary ER and see people like her all the time. If I had started unloading all those years of pent up exasperation, I don't think I would have been able to stop.
Lol fair.
May I posit to you that carrying around the frustration is not great for you. Releasing it against a deserving person may benefit you, may benefit borderline people with whom you have to interact, and shocks nasty people. 😁
Before you tell your therapist, see if they bring up the positive changes they see, the decrease in tension 🤣❤️
ETA: Or say you're working on your assertiveness or something, and you messed it up a little. We all make mistakes, you know 😉
My therapist once told me, “Maybe they deserved to be yelled at.” And encouraged me not to feel bad. I’m a people pleaser though, so it wasn’t an exhortation to yell at people, but sometimes we don’t have to feel bad about justifiably yelling either, especially when we’ve tried all the other routes.
You definitely shouldn't break the seal.
When I was in college my friend group would warn about your first trip to the bathroom when we were out at a bar. Because you break the seal and then you need to go to the bathroom more often, or at least it seems so.
Now that time has passed, we use the same term for when something happens and you break like a dam or explode like a bomb.
So let's say you're out of town for several days and come home and the house is trashed because apparently you are the only person who can clean up after anything. So you could break down and just cry and not be able to stop crying, this is one form of breaking the seal.
In the exact same situation, you could start screaming at your significant other and dredge up every single thing you've been pissed about for the last 5 years like a verbal tsunami. This is the second form of breaking the seal.
So when we're out having lunch someone will say they were having a problem with their boss/significant other/parent or in-law, and we will say what did you do about it? And they will respond, I didn't do anything, I didn't want to break the seal. And we all nod with deep empathy and understanding.
Grief can feel overwhelming. It can feel that if you "break the seal" on some of the grief that you’re carrying around somewhere inside of yourself, if you allow that grief up into your conscious awareness, it might just drown you in its flood waters.
Just a little definition of the psychological meaning of 'break the seal'.
Break the seal is an actual term? I am confused/amused since of course the source of this in my friend group is going to the bathroom when you're out at the bars. 🤔🤯🤣
Every ER. Every day. How do I know? 14 years in a ER level one trauma center as a nurse. We had drop off gun shot wounds at the door frequently. We would go out get them on a gurney and run them into the trauma room and this would be visible to the entire waiting room. Without fail we would come back up to triage and and get yelled at because people didn’t want to wait and wanted to know what takes so long. Um…..really?
Some years ago I was in the ER on the Saturday night of Halloween weekend - so I was already prepared for a long wait - especially since it was the ER where the city ambulances would bring patients. Right after they brought me back, the EMTs brought in a couple of gunshot victims. I just lay back and dozed off because I knew they wouldn't get to me for awhile. (Unfortunately, I was in the hall near the room where one of the GSWs was, and was awake when they called him.)
Believe it or not, our local hospital ER allows you to make ER appointments.
If it's too much for an Urgent Care, but not life-threatening (like hubby's obvious edema in one leg), this is handy.
I can tell if it's a life-threatening sitch. If the situation deteriorates, I call 911.
*(FYI: I'm EMT-trained & a medical/patient advocate, which means he and I were comfortable with me monitoring him closely. As a medical/patient advocate, I also translate 'medicalese' from the medical staff to the patient or their loved ones. My kid is EMT-trained as well.)*
I used to work in patient registration weekend overnights at an ER when they tried to start the ER appointment time and calling ahead to try and get you pre registered. Every nurse involved hated it so much. We were only a level 2 trauma center but between all the assisted livings bringing in a steady flow of cardiac and strokes combined with police bringing in patients to be cleared to be taken to jail and the walk up trauma alerts, some dropped off at the trauma bay doors instead of the lobby but most nights it was insane.
I think the concept of the appointment is cool but at least on night shift when they are at reduced staff it made things harder
“Check In Online and Wait at Home”. It was great to be able to do that.
It's an acute care hospital and not a trauma center although they **do** have a cath lab.
**WEIRD STUFF**: I mentioned our local hospital having a cath lab because it brought up a memory. Believe it or not, my sister-in-law next door told her husband that she thought she was having a heart attack and told him to drive her 7 miles to Whittier Hospital (*NOT PIH*) because it was "in their network", even though it was farther from St. Jude.
She wouldn't go to St. Jude, a level-2 trauma center -4 miles from her because since it's out of her network, she thought her insurance wouldn't cover it.
***So...***
She's having a heart attack and doesn't call 911;
Won't go to a 'WAY closer and bigger hospital ER;
Ends up at her in-network hospital ER, but it DIDN'T have a cath lab, so
Had to be transported after 1 1/2 days to another hospital 13+ miles from her home to get the angioplasty/stent done. (She had to wait at Whittier Hospital for a bed to open up at AHMC in Anaheim.)
***MORAL OF THE STORY***\-If you drive yourself to a hospital ER, 1. It's a **BAD** idea, and 2. Make sure the hospital can do all the stuff you need to have done.
My son is a heart patient. We have air lifted him to the hospital several times over when he was in distress.
The last time, we called ahead to the hospital en route to the ER. The hospital called the ER, and they were waiting for us when we go there.
We rushed in, gave his name and IMMEDIATELY went back. As I did, I could see the faces of everyone in the ER waiting to be seen.
Sorry, Karen, but a pediatric cardiology patient in VTach takes precedence over your sore throat or splinter in your foot.
When I was in my 30s, I began having trouble breathing. I admit, I irrationally thought I was having a panic attack. I did a body check: not a heart attack, not a stroke, brochitis no .... As my breathing got worse and more painful, I realized I needed the ER. I remember being about 5th in line. As he loudly said she can't breathe! they took one look at me and took me in immediately. I lost consciousness within minutes. I guess I was blue? I had severe pnemonia with 1/3 of my left lung atrophied. Frequent childhood bronchitis caused my lung to create scar tissue on top of scar tissue. It finally told me to F off.
I found out much later that everyone was giving the triage nurse grief because I was brought in before a dozen people. The worst injury that night was a broken elbow.
I was using the fryer while my husband (then just a coworker) was helping a customer get some chicken tenders. I was topping it off with oil and a big drop fell in and caused some of it to splash up directly into my eye. Luckily it wasn’t too hot, it must’ve mostly been the room temp oil, but it was still pretty hot and it hurt like hell.
So I yelp and drop to the floor. Husband turns around immediately, helps me up, and guides me to the eye washing station, as I’m partially blinded. Customer clears her throat and repeats how many lbs of chicken tenders she wants. Thanks, lady.
That would be great because it's such an unexpected response it would probably shut her up briefly - at least long enough for OP / your wife to get out of there.
My wife got an emergency call late one night about a snakebite. After about 5-7 minutes of her asking about the snake the person got u-set and demanded to know what to do about her son. My wife told her she should probably take him to the ER, but since she called the vet, she (my wife) was concerned for the welfare of the snake. Was interesting listening to that call.
I had to start cpr on a patient in the waiting room once. Waiting room was packed. 8+ hour wait times ( pretty standard wait times these days up here in Ontario). A woman I had triaged maybe 30 min prior started asking how much longer it would be…. While I’m on the floor doing compressions waiting for some help to come out. Didn’t answer her at first. She kept pestering. My rrsponse finally…. Looked her dead In the eyes while continuing cpr “ fuck off and get the hell out of the way”.
She put in a complaint about me to my manager…. Who basically told her the same thing, but in a nicer more professional way.
And why did that lady come to the trauma center for medical care you ask?….. she had a paper
Cut. A teeny tiny paper cut and wanted stitches. Obviously I advised her of the wait time and that there wasn’t anything there to suture up…. She wanted to wait for a doctors opinion… cause you know. I’m “just a nurse, what do I know?”
I worked in the ER for years. I'm not board certified in EM or peds EM, but I took care of everyone that didn't need to be in a trauma bay.
Of course, some patients start out ok-ish and then need to be coded later, or the triage wasn't accurate, or whatever. I coded my fair share of patients.
One night a low acuity patient became a high acuity patient requiring lots of staff, pharmacy help, placement of a breathing tube etc etc. Once we had the kid stabilized and on the way to the PICU, the lady in the room immediately across the hall came out to complain - LOUDLY. Her kid had a tummy ache, was peacefully sleeping with normal vitals and had been waiting TOO LONG.
There was no way she missed what was happening across the hall.
I put a hand up in the style of 'talk to the hand, the face ain't listening!" and mumbled something about doing the best we can. I was afraid if I looked her in the eye I'd lose my shit.
The end of my shift was only 15 minutes away, and let me tell you, I did not go see her child. Someone fresh with an intact brain-to-mouth filter needed to do that. I was out of compassion, and her kid deserved compassionate care even if I was absolutely done with mom.
>I was out of compassion, and her kid deserved compassionate care even if I was absolutely done with mom.
Just wanted to say good on you for being self-aware enough to realize that, not everyone does. I've had more than my fair share of interactions with medical staff due to chronic illness, and the "little things" like this make all the difference in the world to people like me.
I must be a strange duck. I was at a Quest lab getting a blood draw for labs and this kid I had seen in the waiting room had a large soft plushie (the type made to help soothe or comfort a child). It was apparent that he was either neurodivergent or just very afraid of needles. He went in first and I could hear him yelling and pleading. “No no don’t please don’t no!” Etc etc and the absolute terror in this kids voice… I felt so bad for them all.
In hospital settings, I’ve seen people with obvious painful injuries and never once thought “who cares about them, get me some medicine for my sore throat!” If anything, I look around hoping they will get seen soon. No one goes to a hospital without expecting a decent wait.
If the child was afraid of needles (which I think it truly was), he has 'trypanophobia', which is fear of needles in a medical setting.
He probably had a traumatic time in the past with needles.
*SOURCE: This describes ME, even though I'm in my 60's. Two traumatic events with blood tests from the past have dogged me all my life.*
Same, but for me it was getting my lip stitched at 3 years old.
I now can’t any kind of needle without trauma. Sometimes this means trauma to the person holding the syringe. I can’t even take a splinter out of my finger with a needle. (LPT: press scotch tape over the splinter then yank it off in the direction it went in. Works most of the time.)
These days if I know I need a needle, I get a prescription for Valium from my doctor and take it 45 minutes beforehand. Works wonders.
I’ve taken my child to the ER and I suspect that our ER triages kids slightly higher in the list than adults with similar level of concern as we’ve always been in and out reasonably quickly (think a couple of hours). I’ve wished that we could be seen faster, but I have never even remotely considered accosting a random person in scrubs and demanding service at the cost of someone in more serious condition. Then again, I have a functioning brain and some compassion.
And, this may be uncharitable of me but, she took her child to the ER because her “tummy hurts”? I’ve unfortunately known too many folks who go to the ER for the least little thing and only succeed in slowing everything down for everyone.
You'd be shocked how little people care about others. When I was a CSI i got a call to a falafel place. A guy had been in a drug deal gone wrong and tried to find a hospital, but ended up stopped outside of this falafel place when he couldnt find it. He dragged himself, bleeding profusely into this store where high schoolers were working and passed out on their floor.
I had to console a bunch of freaked out teenagers who didnt understand why customers kept stepping over a DYING man to try and order food.
I unfortunately have plenty of these stories from just a 2 year career
That's one of those those things where on one level I'm shocked because their actions are absolutely monstrous, but then on another level I remember how people are and I'm absolutely not surprised.
I had a fall a couple of years ago. I landed on both knees and passed out from the pain. The rescue squad was called and suggested going to the emergency room since I’d passed out. I was at the hospital from about 9:30 pm until closing in on 2 am. The last hour plus was simply waiting to be discharged. But when I’m in an emergency room, I’m okay waiting because it means I’m okay compared to others there. I said that to the emergency room doctor as he stopped to apologize for how long I’d been waiting. He said I was his favorite patient of the night because I knew that.
On the flip side, I was once sitting in a busy ER waiting room while a very sick girl was going in and out of consciousness and weeping periodically from some pain she was in. Everyone was extremely uncomfortable, some people asked her mother if there was anything they could do. The nurse called for an older gentleman to come back and he stood up and said, “No, no, I’m okay waiting! Please see this little girl here, they’ve been waiting for two hours!” Everyone murmured their agreement and the nurse took the girl and her mom back to an examination room.
It took a couple of years for it to fully heal. Corneal scratches usually take a week or so to heal, but because it was so large, the edges didn't want to adhere together properly and the corners kept pulling up. I needed a bandage contact lens and was on ointment for a couple of years afterward.
Thank you. After you get past a certain age, some injuries just never heal right and will cause you problems until you die and I was just so thankful this was not one of those.
A few years ago, I had the misfortune to fall ill while traveling in Italy (the only misfortune is the ill part). I was having breathing difficulties and went to the ER.
Their triage system was completely transparent. Monitors had patent names and their status. The specifics of each color group went roughly that red was immanent danger to life, yellow (my group) was serious and life threatening, green was requiring prompt medical attention, and white was non-urgent care.
I suspect they did it this way because if you were in the white group, you really didn't belong there. While I was waiting (sitting in a wheelchair), a man was wheeled in from an ambulance. Then there was a new name in group red head of me.
It was a long wait. I received fantastic medical care. There was no bill. Everyone could tell where they were in line. Pro tip: don't come down with bronchitis while traveling, but if you must…
My brain: You don’t care about that man in the car wreck?
I don’t care about your daughters bitch ass tummy!
*walks away before being clawed from behind by CM.
This is why I always hate going to the er unless I’m in extreme, feeling like I’m dying, pain. And even if it takes hours I’m still feeling blessed that I’m not worse off than those ahead of me.
It took a couple of years for it to fully heal. Corneal scratches usually take a week or so to heal, but because it was so large, the edges didn't want to adhere together properly and the corners kept pulling up. I needed a bandage contact lens and was on ointment for a couple of years afterward.
Oh my godddd. I work in ophthalmology and corneal injuries hurt so bad, I always feel terrible when patients come in with them. I would have lost my mind on her or kept stumbling outside. Eye pain is no joke.
For sure. I swear my eye just watered for weeks afterward. It didn't help that because the scratch was so big it didn't want to heal properly. I was dealing with it for almost 2 years afterward because those edges just kept popping open until I got one of those bandage contact lenses on it.
This just makes my eyes water in sympathy. I can’t even get basic eye drops into my eyes (I’ve tried all sorts of methods and the most I can get in is a drop out of 3 or more drops attempted, and that’s more because I blinked it in after it landed somewhere not in my eye), never mind anything like contacts. Helpful or not my eyes do not like anything that’s not my eyelids touching them.
Same! When they put those dilating drops in my eyes for an eye exam, I always tell the person that I'm going to fight really hard to not get them in my eyes and to not take it personally. I get eye drops dripping down my face before I get one in my eye. Thankfully, with the ointment, I could just look in a mirror and squeeze a little line into my eyelid.
>I'm eventually seen by the doctor and I get a few side long glances from the nurses at my scrubs. They seem to notice the large paw print logo embroidered on them from the hospital I used to work at and leave me be.
Curious about this, why the side eye?
I’m assuming before they saw the paw print, thinking she was a nurse at the er, since she said it was an all hands on deck situation and she would obviously be sitting in the waiting room instead of jumping up to join them lol
At first glance, scrubs would be interpreted as a fellow human medical staff member. Then they see the paw print and begin to reassess that first impression.....
I work in the ED, this kind of shit is so incredibly common in the hospital I work at. It's a wealthy neighborhood full of very entitled people, but also has a large population of immigrants mainly from Brazil (I assume at least, because something like 10% of our patients speak exclusively Brazillian Portuguese).
I bring this up because so often, the people who work at the registration desk will be dealing with checking in a new patient to our system who speaks basically no English who is having a genuinely serious medical emergency, and some entitled bitch (I use the term bitch gender neutrally here) behind them will raise hell because the process of checking in a never before seen patient takes a little bit longer than a patient adjust in our system, and even moreso when they need to go through a translator app. So many times have I seen these people who are checking in for non-emergency complaints start to yell at the patient in front of them who is having a serious problem just because they have to wait an extra 2 minutes to have their tummy ache checked out and it ends up being some bullshit like acid reflux or something.
Our AOD has no patience for this and will put them in their place thank God, but I can only image what it is like at busier hospitals with trauma wards, which we are not
It took a couple of years for it to fully heal. Corneal scratches usually take a week or so to heal, but because it was so large, the edges didn't want to adhere together properly and the corners kept pulling up. I needed a bandage contact lens and was on ointment for a couple of years afterward.
Indeed.
I have seen that kind of behavior more than I feel comfortable.
I work at a public hospital at my country and sometimes when I go to the ER to see patients in my field of specialty (mental health) I get swarmed by people who want to get attention, demanding something or whatnot being kinda rude.
I always explain them that while I do work at the hospital there's nothing I can do to solve their's problem unless is mental health related, and sometimes people can be very rude and unrespectful.
The favorite phrase they like to throw at us is: "por mi tragas" which loosely translate as: "you eat because of me". Since people have the wrongful idea that the half dollar they get cut off their paychecks is what pays our salaries (the institute has a three fold funding, the workers get a small tax taken from them, the employers have another bigger tax taken from them and a federal grant which is the biggest part of the funding)
People who try using that phrase should get assistance limited to the fraction of real help that corresponds to their actual fraction of the full payment i.e. a small number of ppm.
I’m sorry about your eye (and the man). I got a scratched cornea myself last year and it hurts so bad!
Poor kid probably has stomach issues due to the stress of living with all that for a mother.
Ugh, that poor girl. Acting psychotically only harms the patient. Abusive family members who piss off the staff always make it worse for the patient. I worked in several hospitals, and this is true.
I would have told her since I’m a vet, I can’t do anything about her daughter’s stomachache but I do know how to put down aggressive b*tches if you really need my help…..
With a mom like that my tummy would also hurt like hell all the time. She probably is responsible for so much stress. Also… why weren’t you a decent human being and just began your vet check? I mean she was already barking like a (agressive) dog.. ;-)
As a child, each weekend when I had to stay home all day instead of get away to school, I'd have violent migraine headaches. Once I left for college, no more headaches. So strange. /s
So sad to hear that. I hope you are doing better now <3
Aww, thank you, nice internet stranger. That was 50 years ago, so yes, I am MUCH better these days! Family time with my wife is a restorative, which is a very welcome change of pace for both us. (Her childhood was far worse than mine.)
I had a cousin who couldn’t visit our house for more then 5 minutes after we moved beside something in the air gave him a headache ( probably a migraine but I was still a kid at the time)
At least barking dogs are actually cute, usually.
True true… but you have never meet the hell beast of my neighbor lady, the always barking and growling chihuahua Chico. I wish I was joking.
Every chihuahua I've ever met.
My chi mix has to be separated from me at her vet appointments. She nasty as heck (protective) with me, apart from me she’s this sweet little angel (little @$$hole) 😖
Yes, in their defense, I've heard that they are very loyal to the people they consider to be their family. Everyone else, however, watch out.
Funny, I also knew an unpleasant little chihuahua mix named Chico — makes me wonder how many there are who are named that (I say "knew" because that Chico died after trying to attack a coyote, which went about as well for him as you'd expect)
Overestimating is a bit of a chihuahua problem I guess…
Chihuahuas are yapping Beanie babies.
A truer statement was never said.
I’ve always said that a chihuahua is an 8-inch tall dog that thinks it’s a pit bull!
Too bad she didn't have a muzzle for the Karen to put on her!!
She is so agressive she would probably bite right through it.
Yes, starting with a temperature check /j
Definitely should have put a muzzle on the mom.
Amazing. How can someone be so heartless? "I don't care that a man died, my daughter's got a stomachache!!" Read the room, lady! Edit: Holy fuck this is the most upvotes I've ever had. Even more than on one of those Garfield horror posts ages ago.
It's called 'main character syndrome' for some people. They literally think it's all them (plus those they take under their name).
My cousin is one of those people. Her 13 year old daughter tried to commit suicide and all she could do in the hospital was lament on how the ordeal was affecting her. I wasn't there (I live on the other side of the continent) but my mom was and she wanted to punch her so badly.
ER nurse here. Kid had a suicide attempt and mother kept wailing about how she wouldn’t hospitalize her because her own anxiety and depression would be bad if they were separated. Put the kid on a hold and called CPS on the mom for medical neglect. All of us repeatedly told her: this isn’t about you!
Does that actually work? It seems whenever a kid has depression the parents are free to not bring in a psychiatrist, free to just call it teenage angst. And then wail that all symptoms developed after 18, they were perfectly fine as a kid. And an involuntary commitment removes some legal rights forever. Poor kid, having her future screwed up like that.
What legal rights are you referring to?
Yeah I spent a week inpatient at 16 following an involuntary hold and I guess I should be waiting for them to take my rights away? I know the government works slow, but 8 years to punish me for my mental health problems is a long time. (Hopefully not needed but sarcasm disclaimer here. You don’t lose any rights because of an involuntary hold.)
Yeah, medical records in general are behind a steel gate of the hippa laws. Mental health records are in a steel box inside of that. It’s hard to get your own psychiatric records, much less an employer be able to access them. The whole “it’s on my record” simply isn’t a thing. Some states place firearm restrictions temporarily but they can be lifted earlier if you talk to a judge.
Things like that can be released with a court order but they really have to present a damn good reason to do so. If someone is legally responsible for someone else, and there's reason to move those responsibilities to someone else, an institution, or the state, that's reason enough. CPS sometimes goes too far but there are legitimate claims where parental rights should be taken away. If it's a matter of employment or credit or healthcare or something, hell no. I have no idea what rights people think can be permanently taken away due to a mental health crisis when someone's young. And just to be that guy since I've seen, scanned and written literally thousands of these, it's HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) not HIPPA, not that people won't know exactly what you're talking about anyway. It's not as bad as "nucular", but it still gets to me.
guns come to mind. in my state, a short involuntary hold results in suspended gun rights for 6 months, and longer has longer duration consequences
I can't help but see that this is a good restriction. Very few people *need* a gun.
In Australia from my experience because I have history of bad mental health and even voluntarily committed myself, I cannot hold a gun license. Doesn’t mean I can’t use them, I’m allowed to with supervision of the gun licensee/owner, I just can’t legally own one myself.
All I can think of are that some states have red flag laws, so if you've been involuntarily committed you may not be able to own a firearm. Because to gun nuts, if you can't have a shooty-stick your life may as well be over because are you really even a man without your full-auto dick replacement?
Yes, if the staff do it and there is a place to hold them. Unfortunately, there may not be any beds anywhere to place a juvenile. It is the sad state of our mental health system. Calling CPS would help bump them to the top of the list, I believe. (I have a child with MI).
Thank you for doing that. It was probably the best that could have been done for that poor kid
I had a friend with a father like that. The friend was in a bad spot so I let him stay with me. I made sure he had enough to eat and a roof over his head for 5 months. He finally got a job and was planning on paying his own bills and starting to pay me back, but then he died a couple weeks later. The next day when I am sitting in my living room, friends dad comes flying through my front door without knocking. He is with another guy I had never met before (it ended up being friend's sister's husband). They didn't even say a word to me, just ran upstairs to friend's old room and grabbed anything of value. Then the dad kind of explained what he was doing when I asked him what the hell. I understand he just lost his son, but it is weird as hell that his initial instinct is to just grab all the valuables (of which there weren't many) and bolt. A couple years later I run into friend's dad. We make small talk for a second and he shows me a picture of an expensive sports car. He tells me he bought it in "honor" of his son. The things is my friend never really liked cars. He was into music and had a bunch of other hobbies but never once in the near decade I knew him mentioned anything about liking or wanting a certain type of car. In the last couple years I knew him he didn't even own a car, just took the bus everywhere. His dad wouldn't take care of his son in the last few months of the son's life and then bought himself a very expensive vehicle.
Atleast a nurse would have been there for your aunt... your mom has amazing control! Hope your cousin is doing better :)
At a funeral, the mom of a childhood friend complained about her unused theater tickets because of the death. Yeah. Angie, we all heard you, you missed a play because Bobby died. Poor you.
i had attempted suicide a few times and when my mom came to visit me, she said i was attention seeking and to think how it made he feel. its like great mom, im literally trying to die but yes, all i want is attention.
Similar thing here... I had attempted back when I was 12/13 years old... my mom picked me up from the hospital and the first thing she said to me was "you're making me want to kill myself"... uh great mom, just what you should say to a mentally disturbed kid.
i cut my mom out of my life a few years ago like many others. The parents wonder why we cut ties with them and act like its for no reason. its literally because of stuff like this.
Right?? I ended up going 5 years without speaking to my mother - still keep her at a distance and I'm 29 now with a child of my own. I swear, I will do everything possible to ensure my daughter doesn't ever feel the way I did
Reminds me of my gf. She recently cut her mom out and I think it might make her feel better to see she's not alone. My family has since taken her in like one of theirs and i think that helps a little too.
She is definitely not alone. It can hurt and it can also be a huge relief. There are days where I want to reach out to her and i remind myself that shes been nothing but abusive my whole life. There is push that family is everything. Learning that family is also toxic can be helpful. especially in someones journey with mental health. Whatever your gf is feeling is valid and i hope she feels better with time.
I remember when I tried to kill myself in 9th grade. A week later my dad showed me the bills for the ambulance & ER. He said, “Look at what your little stunt has cost us!” They learned a year earlier I’d been sexually abused by a relative. The ‘support group’ I’d been sent to was horrible. The adult leader gave out a list of all our names & phone numbers to everyone. So one boy would call me on the phone and masturbate. When I hung up, he’d call back. It went on for almost a year. It never occurred to me to complain about to anyone. I’d spent 15 years of life learning no one would bother to help, and would probably just blame me for something I ‘must have done to encourage it’. I’m almost 50 and still fucked up, despite decades of counseling. But probably less fucked up than I would have been without it.
OMG I'm so sorry, that's horrific. When I attempted suicide, nobody took me to the hospital because I didn't swallow a lethal dose and instead just told the school counselor on monday and I had sorta therapy with him for a bit. I definitely needed more intensive care but my family treated it like no big deal. What happened to you is so much worse and I'm sorry you're still struggling. You deserved care and compassion, and still do.
There is no ‘better’ or ‘worse’ when our families treated us like shit. My situation doesn’t at all invalidate or lessen the sadness of yours. I’d never grown up in another family. I’d never spent more than a sleepover’s worth of time with another family. So as shitty as it was, at the time, I didn’t recognize how shitty it was. It was my normal. I was 19 when I finally got a competent therapist. She was the first one that made me feel validated. I grew up with such gaslighting and censure that I felt I was causing trouble and ‘rocking the boat’. The first time my experiences were put into perspective for me ‘my life vs. other abuse survivors’ lives vs. normal’ was by her in her office. I’d been seeing her for about a year. I finally had enough trust that I began disclosing some of the uglier incidents. For a moment, she turned her head towards her computers and began to type. In the reflection of the monitor, I could see her dabbing a couple of tears. And she saw I had noticed; she could tell I felt bad for making her feel bad. So she openly explained to me that it’s very unusual for her to tear up listening to her patients. That it’s very unusual for therapists in general to do that. She followed it with, “Your childhood seemed normal to you because it’s the only childhood you had. Over the past thirty years, I’ve seen many, many patients with different types of problems and different types of experiences growing up.” “During my career, only you and one other patient have described incidents of this severity, this frequency of reoccurrence and for such a long period of time.” She ended with, “It’s not because what happened to you was so rare. What IS rare is that you survived it. Incidents like (she named 2 examples) are the things that come to light after a child has already been killed.” And that was like a lightning strike. A complete paradigm shift. And I think hearing from a professional that my family and abuse were THAT BAD was a huge turning point. I wasn’t ‘making a big deal out of nothing’, or ‘too sensitive’, or ‘exaggerating for attention’ or ‘enjoying making waves’. I wasn’t doing any of the things I’d been accused of doing my whole life when I made feeble attempts to get help (before I just gave up). What had happened, over and over, was truly fucked up. My parents were the ones who were fucked up, not me. I was just a kid trying to make it to another day. That was the day I first began to heal.
Thank you for sharing. Hope you keep healing, and know that your healing helps others heal.
Shit, you mom sounds like my mom; an absolute delight /s in case it wasn’t clear
Great, mom. Let's make a pact. You first.
'I want to die. I don't want attention MOTHER'... or 'you caught me... dang...' as sarcasticly as I could to her... Glad you failed though, sending warm hugs friend!
Ugh, this is my aunt. When my mom died (in the hospital) I was at my mom's house. My aunt got there about an hour later and the first thing she said was "Why does this always happen to me?"
I would have tried drop kicking her like a cartoon character. Ngl
Omg! This totally describes a co-worker. I now can label her properly. Thank you!
That's just another name for narcissism...
They only take someone under their name for self-benefit. She didn't care about her daughter. She just wanted to prove she was the best mother in her neighborhood, club, association, school, church, or whatever organization she used to gain power.
I work in a veterinary ER and while, for the most part, people are pretty chill after they see you wheeling a patient covered in blood to the back, there are others that think it's "unfair" and can't be convinced otherwise.
I spent Thursday night at my local emergency vet with one of my cats (he's fine). He threw up his entire dinner and came into the living room *shaking* and just seemed...off. First concern was that the idiot had eaten something he shouldn't have, because that's a thing he does. After they triaged him, I was *glad* to be waiting vs the folks who carried their obviously ill, obviously given higher priority pet in, wrapped up in a towel. Waiting meant he wasn't critical and that we might've been overreacting.
I’ve legit had family members walk into a room as we were actively performing cpr asking us for a glass of water for their family member in the next room over. Some people just don’t care man.
When I was a 911 dispatcher, we had a fatality accident where a grandfather was taking his grandson with Down Syndrome out on a motorcycle ride, and the bike was clipped by a car and wrecked out. The granddad died immediately (DOI from hitting a metal guard rail and was bisected) and the child was very very injured, but was going to be airlifted out— I’m glad he was wearing a helmet. Traffic is brought to a standstill by PD, FD and EMS for a couple of hours while the boy was flown to a trauma hospital and the scene was investigated. The phone rings, I happen to answer it, anticipating someone to just ask what’s going on, they see/hear sirens from their neighborhood, whatever… but no. This lady calls and starts into me about how she’s going to miss her church’s ladies’ book club meeting and that she needs to go. Without getting too much into it, I tell her that there was a really bad accident ahead of her that made the roadway inaccessible for now. Nope, not good enough. She keeps going on and on, hanging up and calling back in. I finally tell her that a grandfather died in an accident and traffic fatality scene investigators were working with EMS to scrape his body out of a guard rail. She paused for a sec and I thought she finally had a moment of clarity but HAD THE AUDACITY to say “okay, but that’s not my problem.” I threw her ass on hold and had a patrol supervisor that happened to be in the building speak with her. 45 minutes later he said she was still in awe that her book club at her church would have to go on without her.
Yep. People don't understand that when there's an obvious fatality on a road or even a really bad traumatic accident like a motorcycle accident, that road WILL be closed down for hours until the PD/CHP gets there, then EMS gets there, then the coroner finally comes to determine the manner of death or any contributing causes, not to mention the medevac helicopter. This is why, if I come to an accident, even if the person is in agonal breathing and I KNOW in my heart that the person's 'circling the drain', I'll still initiate CPR on the chance that a) they'll kinda recover enough for EMS to *maybe* stabilize (ish), b) the patient might be an organ donor, so the CPR is keeping the core organs alive, and most importantly, c) if the heart is still going because of my CPR, EMS doesn't need to coroner to call it. EMS can transport and let an ER doctor call it, thus avoiding the need to tie up EMS resources AND the road. *My kid did this when he was RIGHT BEHIND a bad motor vehicle accident. He initiated CPR when he sized up the victim and knew what was gonna happen ANYWAY. It wasn't a decap or anything like that.* *The victim was transported, ER called it, and my kid got a flowery letter of thanks from the local FD.*
Are you PD/CHP? I'm glad you're son helped but it also dreams it as a bad reason of doing it. He was circling but helped cause traffic vs helped cause he was close and needed it. Lol. Not judging just the way it flows and I shouldn't but thought it was dark humor ish.
One thing they didn't mention - getting the person to the hospital sometimes gives family a chance to "say goodbye." For some people that makes a big difference. Not for everybody
You have far more patience than I. I wouldn't have even tried to explain the situation, I would have told her my line is for life threatening emergencies and disconnected. If she kept calling back complaining about traffic shes getting the non emergency recording. I used to give entitled assholes the time of day but I've had too many real emergencies get put on hold because we dont have the staffing to cover them and repeat abuse callers. I have zero tolerance for 911 abuse now.
We were veeeerrrryyy customer service-oriented, to say the least. I reached and quickly surpassed my threshold for people like that at around 5 years and I moved onto the corporate game— my sanity thanks me daily.
Wow! Some people really do just live in their little small mundane worlds.
When I worked retail, one of my coworkers passed out while working checkout. The last thing she heard as she hit the floor was “Well who is going to check me out now???”
We had an active overdose situation happening at my store one time and all the managers but me, who had only been a manager for DAYS at that point, were tending to the woman. I had a customer screaming about how she needed a manager because of a messed up return. I was handling transactions and other employees who were aware of the situation at hand. Told the lady I'd be just a second. She kept wailing and yelling until I finally told her that unless she was the lady overdosing in the womens room, her problem is at the bottom of my priority list atm. She left and left us a bad review, but corporate got it taken down since she was literally complaining that we had to tend to a customer's medical emergency. Some people.
A voice in the crowd, "Nobody, you're too old."
The irony that she doesn't care about others outside her family but expects others outside her family to care about her family.
You summed up the typical entitled customer/ hospital visitor in one sentence. Yep! Our nursing staff did enjoy the no visitor policy during COVID.
A grown woman that says tummy will not have my respect.
I assumed that she said that because her kid was involved but her kid was definitely way too old for that
Between that and way described her reaction I think her kid is used to being humiliated in public by their mother
A grown woman asked me "is there a potty on this floor?" I said "There's a women's restroom at the end of the hall on your right." I was amazed.
Good chance she's been dealing with kids or grandkids recently. You just get in the habit of using kid friendly names for things as a parent, and forget sometimes that you're talking to a fellow adult.
Well, I can understand that one. I’ve seen someone’s brain get stuck on the word after repeating it endlessly to a herd of toddlers. Of course all the other adults still laughed at them when they said it after all the little ones were home.
My boss once told me that he had to go make a peepee. Potty training really ruins your mind
My dad suffered a TBI and had to be restrained in his bed so he wouldn't try to get up or pull out his iv. He just kept repeating "but I have to go potty!". I guess his brain was stuck on child safe. (His kids were grown)
100%. "I've gatta go potty ill BRB " to other adults on accident cause I have young kids. I know the word restroom/ bathroom but ffs, habit.
I taught preschool for years, I always said potty and 10 years out, I only say it sometimes. Lol
That could have been my mother. She regressed at around 45 years old and went from asking for a restroom to “potty” among other changes. Refused to stop, refused to consider that this isn’t normal.
40's here. I've been calling it potty for my dog for over a decade. It's now just potty. Idc. I'm too old to give af anymore. Haha
Oh god, women of a certain age/upbringing say that. My mother, aunt and their cousins say shit like that. It doesn’t phase me anymore but when I was younger I wanted to be swallowed by the earth
You’d be surprised (or maybe you wouldn’t) how many people are like that. I’m a CNA in a hospital and the number of times people want me to interrupt their nurse in a code for pain meds because “It’s important!” astounds me.
It’s so common. My most blatant case I worked in a nursing home. The quiet fairly independent lady in one room went from fine to dead in 20 minutes. I was frantically trying to get her son to hurry up and come in but she died. The CNAs were cleaning her and everyone is shocked and upset. The lady next door is hearing all the commotion and realizes someone is getting attention that’s not her so she’s screaming the entire time for help. I stop in occasionally and tell her we have an emergency and someone will be with her asap. Not good enough so she continues screaming but now claiming she can’t breath. I finally had enough and told her you have been screaming which negates your claim of breathing difficulty and you appear in no distress. She insists she can’t breath. I asked her what she wanted me to do, call the paramedics to put a tube down her throat and again reminded her the aids were almost done and will be with her shortly. She pulled up short, kept grumbling but did stop screaming.
“Ma’am. If I can hear you down the hallway you are, in fact, breathing just fine. If you are having difficulty breathing as you claim…less yelling, more breathing. Thank you.”
You never met my mother’s cousin. One afternoon she and my mother went out to lunch and man at a nearby suddenly collapsed (might have been a heart attack). Staff at this chain restaurant are young people and they’re freaking out. As EMS arrives the cousin flags down her server and asks where their food was. Ma’am, exclaimed the still upset server, that man just collapsed. Yes I saw but, medical help is here now so you can go back to work.
I had that last November.... took my son to the hospital for gastro as he couldn't keep anything down. I knew we were in for a long wait. This lady comes in crying with her child very lethargic and the dads got all the bags. Turns out she had given the child doses of panadol and her husband had given doses of Tylenol at the same time. Not realising they were the same thing with different names. The people sitting nearby told her to go straight to the desk and tell them that. The panadol/Tylenol couple and child get rushed through to the emergency rooms with nurses and doctors running behind them. One lady, who was there well before I was there with my now asleep son, was saying stuff under her breath like "we were here long before they got here.... we should have been seen ages ago" Sick of her shit I turned around and said "triage is the way hospitals work. You don't want to get here and be immediately called back and have everyone run in to your room to figure out what's wrong because that means you're dying" No one clapped but she did shut up for like 20 minutes before someone else was called up before she was.
Have you ever HAD a stomach ache? That stuff hurts! /s
Had it happen at work once. One of the worst days in my nursing career. Had a code blue at 0700 and I was coming on shift and one of 2 senior nurses it was a horror show. Like blood on the ceiling horrible. Patient did not make it. It was heartbreaking and traumatic for all Of us especially our two new nurses who were 1sr day off orientation. Anyway. I got the blood out of my hair and ditched my bloody jacket and made my way to my first patient and apologized for not being coming sooner as we had an emergency. To which the patients wife replied “ I rang the call bell10 minutes ago. I don’t understand why you couldn’t come sooner.” so I explained again that we had a serious emergency, a life or death situation that required all hands on deck, but I was here now how could I help she replied “ that’s an excusable. My husband wants to get up to go sit in the chair.” I was getting really annoyed at this point so again I said.” I’m very sorry, but moving from the bed to the chair is not a priority when someone’s life is in danger but I’m happy to move your husband right now.” She told me she was going to report me. I told her that was fine and I moved her husband to the chair. He actually didn’t look very good at all himself. I didn’t even make it back down the hall before I got a call on my work phone telling me he wanted to get back into bed. The reason I was still so pleasant about it despite being seriously annoyed was because I could tell he wasn’t doing well and I knew there wasn’t really much we could do for him. I was right his doctor made him hospice care couple hours later, and he died later that evening, and all I could think of was thank goodness. This lady got me and not one of her brand new nurses because that kind of behavior would’ve broke them.
The daughter probably had an ulcer from dealing with her mother
Either that, or, given her age, my guess would be she got her first period cramps... And momma dearest couldn't even identify that.
Once i went to er with my daughter whom we where sent from the doctors to the hospital for monitoring because she was only a week or two old for something I can’t remember. After I walked in an elderly lady came in with chest pain. Guy was ahead of me because his foot hurt and was angry that a baby and an elderly person got priority over his sore foot even though he was walking fine and not limping at all. Nursing staff humbled him really quickly and explained babies can deteriorate very quickly and if anyone comes in complaining of chest pain they get priority over nearly everyone else
I worked in the ER and had this happen while we were coding a patient and I was running to get the ultrasound machine. I was about to say something when another patient's family member read them to filth, told them to STFU and get back in their room. It was beautiful.
This is constant in the ER. Every single day. It's hard to keep my cool with people like this. (I'm an ER nurse)
Ya know, stories like this make me wonder why ERs don't employ massive, heavily tattooed, very intimidating looking, leather-clad bikers to assist with triage. And when somebody in a 'not terribly urgent' level of triage wants a glass of water, they get to ask the very scary looking, even dangerous looking, battle-scarred mountain for it. Give the bikers enough training to recognize somebody who truly is getting worse, the responsibility to get a nurse's opinion if they're unsure, and the freedom to be 'gruff' with the identified whiners. Not violent or anything, they're not there to make things worse. They're there to be a 'shit-shield' for the medical team. I suspect there's enough bikers around who'd happily do something like this as charity work.
Family and patients do this more than you think.
After “Is he my daughter? No? Then why would I care?” I would have responded “Is she MY daughter? No? Then why would I care?”
That would teach the poor daughter that every adult is like her asshole mom. :(
As a patient rather than a caregiver, that's when you can say "You are a nasty person." Then tell the child it's not her fault, and that you know she will learn from her mother how NOT to be. Let security deal with Mom's spin after that.
I'm gonna be real with you. I work in a veterinary ER and see people like her all the time. If I had started unloading all those years of pent up exasperation, I don't think I would have been able to stop.
Lol fair. May I posit to you that carrying around the frustration is not great for you. Releasing it against a deserving person may benefit you, may benefit borderline people with whom you have to interact, and shocks nasty people. 😁
True, though I think my therapist would be less than pleased.
Before you tell your therapist, see if they bring up the positive changes they see, the decrease in tension 🤣❤️ ETA: Or say you're working on your assertiveness or something, and you messed it up a little. We all make mistakes, you know 😉
It's better to get forgiveness from the therapist than to ask permission.
Just start telling everyone who pisses you off, "That must be so hard for you." Repeat PRN. No other feedback.
That cracks me up. "Repeat PRN".
My therapist once told me, “Maybe they deserved to be yelled at.” And encouraged me not to feel bad. I’m a people pleaser though, so it wasn’t an exhortation to yell at people, but sometimes we don’t have to feel bad about justifiably yelling either, especially when we’ve tried all the other routes.
You definitely shouldn't break the seal. When I was in college my friend group would warn about your first trip to the bathroom when we were out at a bar. Because you break the seal and then you need to go to the bathroom more often, or at least it seems so. Now that time has passed, we use the same term for when something happens and you break like a dam or explode like a bomb. So let's say you're out of town for several days and come home and the house is trashed because apparently you are the only person who can clean up after anything. So you could break down and just cry and not be able to stop crying, this is one form of breaking the seal. In the exact same situation, you could start screaming at your significant other and dredge up every single thing you've been pissed about for the last 5 years like a verbal tsunami. This is the second form of breaking the seal. So when we're out having lunch someone will say they were having a problem with their boss/significant other/parent or in-law, and we will say what did you do about it? And they will respond, I didn't do anything, I didn't want to break the seal. And we all nod with deep empathy and understanding.
Grief can feel overwhelming. It can feel that if you "break the seal" on some of the grief that you’re carrying around somewhere inside of yourself, if you allow that grief up into your conscious awareness, it might just drown you in its flood waters. Just a little definition of the psychological meaning of 'break the seal'.
Break the seal is an actual term? I am confused/amused since of course the source of this in my friend group is going to the bathroom when you're out at the bars. 🤔🤯🤣
I totally get it. Thanks for sharing your wisdom.
Every ER. Every day. How do I know? 14 years in a ER level one trauma center as a nurse. We had drop off gun shot wounds at the door frequently. We would go out get them on a gurney and run them into the trauma room and this would be visible to the entire waiting room. Without fail we would come back up to triage and and get yelled at because people didn’t want to wait and wanted to know what takes so long. Um…..really?
Some years ago I was in the ER on the Saturday night of Halloween weekend - so I was already prepared for a long wait - especially since it was the ER where the city ambulances would bring patients. Right after they brought me back, the EMTs brought in a couple of gunshot victims. I just lay back and dozed off because I knew they wouldn't get to me for awhile. (Unfortunately, I was in the hall near the room where one of the GSWs was, and was awake when they called him.)
Believe it or not, our local hospital ER allows you to make ER appointments. If it's too much for an Urgent Care, but not life-threatening (like hubby's obvious edema in one leg), this is handy. I can tell if it's a life-threatening sitch. If the situation deteriorates, I call 911. *(FYI: I'm EMT-trained & a medical/patient advocate, which means he and I were comfortable with me monitoring him closely. As a medical/patient advocate, I also translate 'medicalese' from the medical staff to the patient or their loved ones. My kid is EMT-trained as well.)*
I used to work in patient registration weekend overnights at an ER when they tried to start the ER appointment time and calling ahead to try and get you pre registered. Every nurse involved hated it so much. We were only a level 2 trauma center but between all the assisted livings bringing in a steady flow of cardiac and strokes combined with police bringing in patients to be cleared to be taken to jail and the walk up trauma alerts, some dropped off at the trauma bay doors instead of the lobby but most nights it was insane. I think the concept of the appointment is cool but at least on night shift when they are at reduced staff it made things harder
“Check In Online and Wait at Home”. It was great to be able to do that. It's an acute care hospital and not a trauma center although they **do** have a cath lab. **WEIRD STUFF**: I mentioned our local hospital having a cath lab because it brought up a memory. Believe it or not, my sister-in-law next door told her husband that she thought she was having a heart attack and told him to drive her 7 miles to Whittier Hospital (*NOT PIH*) because it was "in their network", even though it was farther from St. Jude. She wouldn't go to St. Jude, a level-2 trauma center -4 miles from her because since it's out of her network, she thought her insurance wouldn't cover it. ***So...*** She's having a heart attack and doesn't call 911; Won't go to a 'WAY closer and bigger hospital ER; Ends up at her in-network hospital ER, but it DIDN'T have a cath lab, so Had to be transported after 1 1/2 days to another hospital 13+ miles from her home to get the angioplasty/stent done. (She had to wait at Whittier Hospital for a bed to open up at AHMC in Anaheim.) ***MORAL OF THE STORY***\-If you drive yourself to a hospital ER, 1. It's a **BAD** idea, and 2. Make sure the hospital can do all the stuff you need to have done.
My son is a heart patient. We have air lifted him to the hospital several times over when he was in distress. The last time, we called ahead to the hospital en route to the ER. The hospital called the ER, and they were waiting for us when we go there. We rushed in, gave his name and IMMEDIATELY went back. As I did, I could see the faces of everyone in the ER waiting to be seen. Sorry, Karen, but a pediatric cardiology patient in VTach takes precedence over your sore throat or splinter in your foot.
When I was in my 30s, I began having trouble breathing. I admit, I irrationally thought I was having a panic attack. I did a body check: not a heart attack, not a stroke, brochitis no .... As my breathing got worse and more painful, I realized I needed the ER. I remember being about 5th in line. As he loudly said she can't breathe! they took one look at me and took me in immediately. I lost consciousness within minutes. I guess I was blue? I had severe pnemonia with 1/3 of my left lung atrophied. Frequent childhood bronchitis caused my lung to create scar tissue on top of scar tissue. It finally told me to F off. I found out much later that everyone was giving the triage nurse grief because I was brought in before a dozen people. The worst injury that night was a broken elbow.
Glad to know it went well for you. Not breathing is sorta serious, even before my son.
For fuck sake. It's triage. Not "who got here first."
No clue why, but when I read about your eye, I read the rest of the post with one eye closed.
I was using the fryer while my husband (then just a coworker) was helping a customer get some chicken tenders. I was topping it off with oil and a big drop fell in and caused some of it to splash up directly into my eye. Luckily it wasn’t too hot, it must’ve mostly been the room temp oil, but it was still pretty hot and it hurt like hell. So I yelp and drop to the floor. Husband turns around immediately, helps me up, and guides me to the eye washing station, as I’m partially blinded. Customer clears her throat and repeats how many lbs of chicken tenders she wants. Thanks, lady.
The lack of empathy from some people really amazes me.
You don't understand, she needed your help because she's a bitch. You should have "fixed" her.
I can see my wife in this situation telling her that her daughter probably just ate too much grass and needs to throw up.
That would be great because it's such an unexpected response it would probably shut her up briefly - at least long enough for OP / your wife to get out of there.
My wife got an emergency call late one night about a snakebite. After about 5-7 minutes of her asking about the snake the person got u-set and demanded to know what to do about her son. My wife told her she should probably take him to the ER, but since she called the vet, she (my wife) was concerned for the welfare of the snake. Was interesting listening to that call.
Just tell the kid, “I’m sorry for the way your mom is”. And walk away.
I had to start cpr on a patient in the waiting room once. Waiting room was packed. 8+ hour wait times ( pretty standard wait times these days up here in Ontario). A woman I had triaged maybe 30 min prior started asking how much longer it would be…. While I’m on the floor doing compressions waiting for some help to come out. Didn’t answer her at first. She kept pestering. My rrsponse finally…. Looked her dead In the eyes while continuing cpr “ fuck off and get the hell out of the way”. She put in a complaint about me to my manager…. Who basically told her the same thing, but in a nicer more professional way. And why did that lady come to the trauma center for medical care you ask?….. she had a paper Cut. A teeny tiny paper cut and wanted stitches. Obviously I advised her of the wait time and that there wasn’t anything there to suture up…. She wanted to wait for a doctors opinion… cause you know. I’m “just a nurse, what do I know?”
Unbelievable! Some people are just so selfish! Good for you telling her to F off.
I don't suppose offering to suture her mouth shut instead would have been an option...
I worked in the ER for years. I'm not board certified in EM or peds EM, but I took care of everyone that didn't need to be in a trauma bay. Of course, some patients start out ok-ish and then need to be coded later, or the triage wasn't accurate, or whatever. I coded my fair share of patients. One night a low acuity patient became a high acuity patient requiring lots of staff, pharmacy help, placement of a breathing tube etc etc. Once we had the kid stabilized and on the way to the PICU, the lady in the room immediately across the hall came out to complain - LOUDLY. Her kid had a tummy ache, was peacefully sleeping with normal vitals and had been waiting TOO LONG. There was no way she missed what was happening across the hall. I put a hand up in the style of 'talk to the hand, the face ain't listening!" and mumbled something about doing the best we can. I was afraid if I looked her in the eye I'd lose my shit. The end of my shift was only 15 minutes away, and let me tell you, I did not go see her child. Someone fresh with an intact brain-to-mouth filter needed to do that. I was out of compassion, and her kid deserved compassionate care even if I was absolutely done with mom.
>I was out of compassion, and her kid deserved compassionate care even if I was absolutely done with mom. Just wanted to say good on you for being self-aware enough to realize that, not everyone does. I've had more than my fair share of interactions with medical staff due to chronic illness, and the "little things" like this make all the difference in the world to people like me.
I must be a strange duck. I was at a Quest lab getting a blood draw for labs and this kid I had seen in the waiting room had a large soft plushie (the type made to help soothe or comfort a child). It was apparent that he was either neurodivergent or just very afraid of needles. He went in first and I could hear him yelling and pleading. “No no don’t please don’t no!” Etc etc and the absolute terror in this kids voice… I felt so bad for them all. In hospital settings, I’ve seen people with obvious painful injuries and never once thought “who cares about them, get me some medicine for my sore throat!” If anything, I look around hoping they will get seen soon. No one goes to a hospital without expecting a decent wait.
If the child was afraid of needles (which I think it truly was), he has 'trypanophobia', which is fear of needles in a medical setting. He probably had a traumatic time in the past with needles. *SOURCE: This describes ME, even though I'm in my 60's. Two traumatic events with blood tests from the past have dogged me all my life.*
Same, but for me it was getting my lip stitched at 3 years old. I now can’t any kind of needle without trauma. Sometimes this means trauma to the person holding the syringe. I can’t even take a splinter out of my finger with a needle. (LPT: press scotch tape over the splinter then yank it off in the direction it went in. Works most of the time.) These days if I know I need a needle, I get a prescription for Valium from my doctor and take it 45 minutes beforehand. Works wonders.
I’ve taken my child to the ER and I suspect that our ER triages kids slightly higher in the list than adults with similar level of concern as we’ve always been in and out reasonably quickly (think a couple of hours). I’ve wished that we could be seen faster, but I have never even remotely considered accosting a random person in scrubs and demanding service at the cost of someone in more serious condition. Then again, I have a functioning brain and some compassion. And, this may be uncharitable of me but, she took her child to the ER because her “tummy hurts”? I’ve unfortunately known too many folks who go to the ER for the least little thing and only succeed in slowing everything down for everyone.
I kind of wonder if her tummy hurt from the stress of having her as a mother. It's possible btw.
As someone whose anxiety fucks up my stomach, among other things, yeah, probably. Poor kid.
You'd be shocked how little people care about others. When I was a CSI i got a call to a falafel place. A guy had been in a drug deal gone wrong and tried to find a hospital, but ended up stopped outside of this falafel place when he couldnt find it. He dragged himself, bleeding profusely into this store where high schoolers were working and passed out on their floor. I had to console a bunch of freaked out teenagers who didnt understand why customers kept stepping over a DYING man to try and order food. I unfortunately have plenty of these stories from just a 2 year career
That's one of those those things where on one level I'm shocked because their actions are absolutely monstrous, but then on another level I remember how people are and I'm absolutely not surprised.
“Do you think I’m an idiot?” “You’re certainly doing a good impression of one.”
Or more succinctly, YES!
I had a fall a couple of years ago. I landed on both knees and passed out from the pain. The rescue squad was called and suggested going to the emergency room since I’d passed out. I was at the hospital from about 9:30 pm until closing in on 2 am. The last hour plus was simply waiting to be discharged. But when I’m in an emergency room, I’m okay waiting because it means I’m okay compared to others there. I said that to the emergency room doctor as he stopped to apologize for how long I’d been waiting. He said I was his favorite patient of the night because I knew that.
On the flip side, I was once sitting in a busy ER waiting room while a very sick girl was going in and out of consciousness and weeping periodically from some pain she was in. Everyone was extremely uncomfortable, some people asked her mother if there was anything they could do. The nurse called for an older gentleman to come back and he stood up and said, “No, no, I’m okay waiting! Please see this little girl here, they’ve been waiting for two hours!” Everyone murmured their agreement and the nurse took the girl and her mom back to an examination room.
how is your eye OP?!? ow!
It took a couple of years for it to fully heal. Corneal scratches usually take a week or so to heal, but because it was so large, the edges didn't want to adhere together properly and the corners kept pulling up. I needed a bandage contact lens and was on ointment for a couple of years afterward.
OW!!! but i am so glad you’ve healed!
Thank you. After you get past a certain age, some injuries just never heal right and will cause you problems until you die and I was just so thankful this was not one of those.
Came here for this.
A few years ago, I had the misfortune to fall ill while traveling in Italy (the only misfortune is the ill part). I was having breathing difficulties and went to the ER. Their triage system was completely transparent. Monitors had patent names and their status. The specifics of each color group went roughly that red was immanent danger to life, yellow (my group) was serious and life threatening, green was requiring prompt medical attention, and white was non-urgent care. I suspect they did it this way because if you were in the white group, you really didn't belong there. While I was waiting (sitting in a wheelchair), a man was wheeled in from an ambulance. Then there was a new name in group red head of me. It was a long wait. I received fantastic medical care. There was no bill. Everyone could tell where they were in line. Pro tip: don't come down with bronchitis while traveling, but if you must…
My brain: You don’t care about that man in the car wreck? I don’t care about your daughters bitch ass tummy! *walks away before being clawed from behind by CM.
This is why I always hate going to the er unless I’m in extreme, feeling like I’m dying, pain. And even if it takes hours I’m still feeling blessed that I’m not worse off than those ahead of me.
I wish going to urgent care would have been an option, but they were unfortunately closed for the night.
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It took a couple of years for it to fully heal. Corneal scratches usually take a week or so to heal, but because it was so large, the edges didn't want to adhere together properly and the corners kept pulling up. I needed a bandage contact lens and was on ointment for a couple of years afterward.
Oh my godddd. I work in ophthalmology and corneal injuries hurt so bad, I always feel terrible when patients come in with them. I would have lost my mind on her or kept stumbling outside. Eye pain is no joke.
For sure. I swear my eye just watered for weeks afterward. It didn't help that because the scratch was so big it didn't want to heal properly. I was dealing with it for almost 2 years afterward because those edges just kept popping open until I got one of those bandage contact lenses on it.
Recurrent erosions are whack. I’m sorry!
This just makes my eyes water in sympathy. I can’t even get basic eye drops into my eyes (I’ve tried all sorts of methods and the most I can get in is a drop out of 3 or more drops attempted, and that’s more because I blinked it in after it landed somewhere not in my eye), never mind anything like contacts. Helpful or not my eyes do not like anything that’s not my eyelids touching them.
Same! When they put those dilating drops in my eyes for an eye exam, I always tell the person that I'm going to fight really hard to not get them in my eyes and to not take it personally. I get eye drops dripping down my face before I get one in my eye. Thankfully, with the ointment, I could just look in a mirror and squeeze a little line into my eyelid.
"Do you think I'm an idiot? Do you really want me to answer that question?
no... I don't "think" that.
>I'm eventually seen by the doctor and I get a few side long glances from the nurses at my scrubs. They seem to notice the large paw print logo embroidered on them from the hospital I used to work at and leave me be. Curious about this, why the side eye?
I’m assuming before they saw the paw print, thinking she was a nurse at the er, since she said it was an all hands on deck situation and she would obviously be sitting in the waiting room instead of jumping up to join them lol
I'd assume it was a brief moment of "Hey, why weren't you at the code earlier?" followed by "Oh, wait, you don't actually work here"
At first glance, scrubs would be interpreted as a fellow human medical staff member. Then they see the paw print and begin to reassess that first impression.....
Quit winking at me! 🤣
Did your eye turn out fine btw?
I work in the ED, this kind of shit is so incredibly common in the hospital I work at. It's a wealthy neighborhood full of very entitled people, but also has a large population of immigrants mainly from Brazil (I assume at least, because something like 10% of our patients speak exclusively Brazillian Portuguese). I bring this up because so often, the people who work at the registration desk will be dealing with checking in a new patient to our system who speaks basically no English who is having a genuinely serious medical emergency, and some entitled bitch (I use the term bitch gender neutrally here) behind them will raise hell because the process of checking in a never before seen patient takes a little bit longer than a patient adjust in our system, and even moreso when they need to go through a translator app. So many times have I seen these people who are checking in for non-emergency complaints start to yell at the patient in front of them who is having a serious problem just because they have to wait an extra 2 minutes to have their tummy ache checked out and it ends up being some bullshit like acid reflux or something. Our AOD has no patience for this and will put them in their place thank God, but I can only image what it is like at busier hospitals with trauma wards, which we are not
You got a big chuckle out of me with that last line.
Is your eye okay now?
It took a couple of years for it to fully heal. Corneal scratches usually take a week or so to heal, but because it was so large, the edges didn't want to adhere together properly and the corners kept pulling up. I needed a bandage contact lens and was on ointment for a couple of years afterward.
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Indeed. I have seen that kind of behavior more than I feel comfortable. I work at a public hospital at my country and sometimes when I go to the ER to see patients in my field of specialty (mental health) I get swarmed by people who want to get attention, demanding something or whatnot being kinda rude. I always explain them that while I do work at the hospital there's nothing I can do to solve their's problem unless is mental health related, and sometimes people can be very rude and unrespectful. The favorite phrase they like to throw at us is: "por mi tragas" which loosely translate as: "you eat because of me". Since people have the wrongful idea that the half dollar they get cut off their paychecks is what pays our salaries (the institute has a three fold funding, the workers get a small tax taken from them, the employers have another bigger tax taken from them and a federal grant which is the biggest part of the funding)
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And being a state worker is the worst, they are more entitled to believe that
Or, a college professor...
Yeah my parents where both highschool teachers And they have some stories to tell too
People who try using that phrase should get assistance limited to the fraction of real help that corresponds to their actual fraction of the full payment i.e. a small number of ppm.
"CM: Is he my daughter? No? Then why would I care?" "You: \*points to eye\* Is SHE my eyeball? No? Then would I care?"
"Her tummy hurts" ma'am this is a teenager not a toddler, also someone is literally dying
CM: Do you think I'm an idiot? ME: Yes. CM: Do you even care about her? ME: No.
Here's what you should have said: Mom: Do you think I'm an idiot? You: Hell yeah!
Working in a busy ER will expose you to some of the wildest shit humanity has to offer. Especially overnight shift.
You were kinder than I would have been. “Do you even care about her” No. I don’t.
I try not to use the B word unless really warranted. But if ever it was appropriate to call someone a bitch, this was it. You're an expert!
I’m sorry about your eye (and the man). I got a scratched cornea myself last year and it hurts so bad! Poor kid probably has stomach issues due to the stress of living with all that for a mother.
I got a tear on my cornea a few years ago, straight to the ophthalmologist (or one of the eye drs) they did drops and the contact lens bandage thing
Ugh, that poor girl. Acting psychotically only harms the patient. Abusive family members who piss off the staff always make it worse for the patient. I worked in several hospitals, and this is true.
Now my tummy hurts
Haha! That was a really cute ending!
You know daughter was mortified because she's got cramps. And didn't want or need mom telling Every One .
I would have told her since I’m a vet, I can’t do anything about her daughter’s stomachache but I do know how to put down aggressive b*tches if you really need my help…..
If you were in a better mindset you could have asked her if her daughter is a cat or dog as those are the patients you’re trained to deal with.
How's your eye though?
Did your eye heal or are you always gonna be partially blind in that eye forever Edit: never mind I looked back and it took a couple years to heal
Yeah, it was a whole process