Hospital Visit

I was in the hospital a few months ago. I had been in pain for some time and didn’t understand why. My mom and I decided to go to the emergency room by the 4th day that I was in pain. It took hours just sitting and waiting to be called back but when we did, it took even longer sitting in the hospital room waiting to find out what test they were going to run next.

A few months ago in October I was admitted to the ER for an excruciating amount of pain in my lower right abdomen. We got there around 10am and was taken to the examination room almost immediatly because of the possiblity that it could have been my appendix. They had a few tests to run and sent us to the waiting room. My mom and I sat in the waiting room almost 2 hours waiting to be taken to a room. In the ER you’re taken back by the severity of pain, bleeding or possible causes so when a family who came in after us, whos child was running around, screaming and touching everything was taken back before us for a sprained thumb, we were obviously very annoyed but I wasn’t very angry just yet because I knew we would be taken back soon, my mom however did not think this.

After we were finally taken back after 2 hours of waiting we were put in a room where multiple different nurses and doctors were coming in and out of the room taking the same story over and over. We finally got our doctor who we were waiting for as she was just coming into work. She finally ordered blood work to be done and once they did that, she ordered for a cat scan. At this point my mom was extremely annoyed and wanted to leave. I was still not, all I wanted was to find out what was wrong with my body. I got a cat scan which took 5 minutes at most but then we waiting 2 or 3 more hours for the results of the cat scan.

We got the results and were ready to leave and get something to eat after around 5 hours but of course we didn’t leave immediately. We waiting another hour just for the discharge papers. My mom was trying to leave and almost left the room until I convinced her to stay because they won’t let us leave without the discharge papers.

Throughout this whole time in the hospital, my mom became increasingly annoyed yet I stayed calm and patient throughout waiting 6 hours in the Emergency Room to find out what was happening. Once we found out what had happened and what was causing me so much pain we were finally able to leave knowing it was nothing serious and I could carry on with my everyday life. In the end I came to the realization that I can be patient for longer than I thought I could, there have been a few time after this that I have been aware of this, especially if it is for something that other people might get frustrated with, I can take the time to work it out.

“Neurology waiting room at University of Washington hospital” by D Coetzee is marked with CC0 1.0.