The Emergency Room

I need a few moments of your time to rant and rave for awhile. I am sitting here sleepless in a house that is crawling with illness. Thus the issue of my rant.

Last Monday I noticed that Loryn had a fever. Per the doctor's policies I waited until Thursday to bring her in (based on the theory of a fever needs to run for 3 days before being seen). They checked her over and found nothing wrong with her. So we left the office.

Later that afternoon I happened to pick up Mallory and found her to be burning with fever as well. So now I am nursing two sick children. By Saturday Mallory was covered in a rash and her fever had not disappeared and neither had Loryn's. I took them both to the ER to have them checked out.

I should have known better. Deep down I knew I should have just gone to the Urgent Care center. But I tried to be practical in my thinking. I had to get on another highway to get to the Urgent Care facility and the hospital ER was right here.

We follow all procedures by registering, waiting to be called to Triage, and then waiting some more to be called back to a room. I walked into the ER at 7:15pm and was called into a room just before 10. Now mind you, I am not ranting or raving. Just simply biding my time as best I can with two children. Meanwhile it provides a great source of entertainment for them. As long as Mallory wasn't touching Loryn (Loryn was convinced that whenever she brushed up against Mallory, Mallory was "burning" her) we were good.

Once in the room our nurse comes in promptly to check us on. The doctor was not far behind her. He checked over both girls within 5 minutes tops and diagnoses Mallory with Roseola and ordered an X-ray for Loryn. So we wait again. Pretty soon we get the X-ray completed and wait again. By now it is 10:30pm. The doctor comes in to say that Loryn's X-ray is clear and she is good to go home. Diagnosis: nothing wrong with her.

Our nurse comes back in (a blessed part of this whole trip and an SCHS alumni) to discharge us. Upon handing us the papers she brushes up against Loryn to find her fever back. So we wait again for her to administer Tylenol and Motrin to her before we leave.

Finally at 10:50pm I am walking out of the ER $200 poorer because I'm too stupid to look at the co-pay on our insurance card and utterly exhausted.

Why do I hate the ER? I hate that there is no reasonable way to handle children in the ER. There were tons of people in there with broken arms or legs or sprained wrists. Why can't they be ushered into another area while they wait for their X-rays? I know my thinking is not logical at this point but now I am ravaged with fever and here I sit. Waiting again for this to go away.