I went home, we ordered pizza.
I was very hungry.
My mom said I should check with the instacare.
(unfortunately the instacare wasn't listed in any of the phonebooks.)
The instacare had only been open about a month.
They told me their hours were 9 to 9.
I decided to eat first, then go in.
We borrowed some crutches from a neighbor,
(but their reccommended height was about six inches shorter than mine.)
And to the Instacare we went.
I found great irony, that they didn't have handicap accessible doors.
They found me a wheel chair, and asked for my phone number.
The process was actually quite smooth.
I really was brought in almost instantly (of course the office was empty when I got there.)They checked my vitals, (medical people seem to like that because it happened a lot). I think this was the third time.
After about twenty minutes the doctor came to check me out.
She thought I probably had a fracture. She seemed very nice, maybe too nice. Maybe she was in pediatrics, I don't know, but she was very um delicate. Whe would barely touch me, and ask if it hurt. Of course, it did not. Or at least, not very much.
Then the nurse took me back for x-rays. Recognized the nurse, (this was a very common theme through out my experience). Xray's weren't all that fun. I had to put my leg places it didn't always want to be. Then I had to hold it there.
I could see the scans on the computer monitor outside my window, My leg looked pretty good. I guess I missed something, because my leg was not so good. In fact it was broken.
When the doctor came back in, she looked pretty surprised. She had be right, I had broken it, but she how no idea how large the fracture was. It was much more broken, than even she expected. She said I should go to the ER pretty quickly.
Getting in and out of the car was harder than I expected, but somehow I managed.
In the ER, we saw a few more people we knew, then checked in. My nurse was awesome. Her name was Vanessa. She said somebody had really messed up on the crutches, because those ones weren't the right size. She promptly found me some taller ones. My friends came up to visit. While we waited we played cards. Phase 10 cards.
This really made Vanessa laugh. Phase 10 in the ER at um midnight, I guess it's not common. Then one of my friends (who was also one of my EMT's came in) he was there to IV me. He was a bit surprised to find out how serious my injury was. I was very good at phase 10, in fact I was winning.
Corey did my CT scan. He said it was pretty sweet.
Not every day that you get one that good.
Dr. Delcore happened to be on call, so he was assigned as my surgeon.
He came and found me. I did not expect what I saw. He was young. Reallly young. Not like Doogie Houser young, but not much older than me. He asked me about my accident,
and then about my work. He started taking notes on his pants.
I admit, this caught me off guard. He was pretty interested. He asked if I wanted to see what had happened. I obliged. So he pulled out his pen, and started drawing.
He just drew right there on the bed. There was my tibia, there was my femur and there in the middle, was my fracture, or perhaps I should say fissure. Right down the middle, it was split right open. And a little piece of bone, just propping it open.
He was pretty nice, but he was going home to bed. I had eaten too recently, and he had just finished a pretty serious surgery, so he scheduled me for surgery in the morning.
Venessa made sure the hospital got me an extra tall bed. I got a new batch of nurses, and big surprise, I knew them too.
2 comments:
I didn't find it unprofessional.
It was actually quite nice.
I think we all enjoyed it.
And it was a very effective canvas.
One time my dad slipped on the ice and hit his head. I don't know who the ER doctor was, but he reminded me of the dentist/doctor guy from "That Thing You Do." I haven't seen it in a while, so I could be wrong. Anyway, his teeth sparkled when he smiled and he said macho things like, "no one dies on my shift" and other such nonsense.
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