Thank you.

Alan,

I know you will probably never see this blog, but I wanted to put this out here.

This afternoon in the ER, when they wanted to put in an IV to draw blood, I got hysterical.  My last trip to the ER involved what was even for me a rough time getting an IV in.  I was borderline phobic before, and have crossed into the real thing once again, I think.  I was when I was younger, and being re-traumatized didn’t help.

Without meds, you talked me down and distracted me, and hit a vein on the first try with minimal pain.  Thank you for NOT treating me as if my reaction was unreasonable or inconvenient.  That basic kindness and decency is so deeply helpful in situations like this.  It seems to be much the character of the ER you work in, but this was an unusually strong exemplar of just how awesome you guys are at this ER.  There’s a reason we don’t like to go anywhere else – I get treated compassionately, kindly, and thoughtfully here.  There are never issues with my service dog, and people actually care if I am okay.  ERs like yours seem to be a sadly rare phenomenon.  I can’t tell you how often I have been treated as if I was nothing more than a difficulty in other places.

So thank you.  Thank you for caring enough to not want me falling apart and sobbing.  Thank you for making this a non-traumatic experience.  But most of all, thank you for being patient and kind.

 

(P.S. – if you’re wondering about why I ended up in the ER, it’s kind of an odd story.  You see, this afternoon, right after I posted my most recent post before this one, something weird happened.  I had had a headache since last night which was neither a migraine nor a tension headache, as treatments that work on those had no effect on it.  I turned my head to the right, heard and felt a crack in my neck, felt shooting pain going to my left armpit and down the left side of the spine, and passed out.  I came to less than a minute later, dizzy and nauseated.  A little while later, I got to my phone and called my doctor’s office, where they advised me to go to the ER.  I threw up shortly after that, called myself a cab, and decamped off to the ER.  They did a little bit of testing (ekg and bloodwork), poked me a bit, and decided to send me home.  Apparently, I’m not urgently in trouble, but they do want me back in with my GP to try to get to the bottom of this.  Precisely what I needed with exams starting in two weeks, ah well.  This will certainly be…entertaining.

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