A Relaxing Stay at Shawnee Mission Medical Spa...ahem...Center

(Ooo, another disclaimer--Disclaimer: this post was written primarily last Friday during my short breaks at work. So, the time frame references might seem a little off. You know, by a few days.)

Juliet and I took a little trip to the ER last night. I was about to leave to go to Conversations, for once. She hadn't been feeling well, and thought a nap would help. But she woke up just before I left, in time to tell me that the pain in her side was worse after sleeping instead of better. So, we decided to call Ask-A-Nurse. Which in itself took a little while, and ended with a recommendation to hop on in for a checkup, in case it was something serious (like appendicitis or pancreatitis, I think is what they meant).

So, we headed over the not-so-many mile stretch between our place and the hospital. It took a little while to get signed in, and there were some other people around there in the waiting rooms and whatnot--a girl who had apparently broken her wrist playing field hockey or some such, still in uniform; a girl who looked to be in extreme pain, but with no idea of what exactly was wrong, there with her boyfriend; a little boy who'd come in with his mother to get a suture removed, but he seemed like any distracted little kid, so I think the pain from whyever he had the suture in the first place was either gone or far enough forgotten to not be a problem; there was an elderly black woman in a wheelchair who didn't say a word to anyone, even her family members who had brought her; and a few sparse others.

It wasn't too long before the nurse had a few questions for Juliet (the same ones she'd answered on her sign-in forms, the same ones the ER nurse asked once we were in a room, the same ones the doctor asked when he got there, the same ones the lead nurse asked when she came in to put in the IV where the other nurse couldn't find a way into the vein, the same ones the scan operator asked as well...you'd think they might have talked to each other or read the sign-in papers somewhere along the way, but maybe that's not how things work in the ER).

The first nurse was a very happy man. He talked to us for a bit, jolly as could be. Then he proceeded to stick a needle into both of Juliet's arms, hoping to find a vein that wasn't in the hand (because "the hand is painful, and this shouldn't be," he claimed). As I've mentioned, he couldn't get the 22--smallest needle for this purpose, apparently--into the vein, so he called in their head ER nurse, who got it into a vein in Juliet's wrist a bit later, while Juliet was distracted by the scan operator asking her more of the same questions.

There was a TV in the room, but we didn't know it had a volume control (on the hospital bed remote) until after the Computerized Axial Tomography scan was completed. Now, if you hadn't noticed, this post is not set up in exactly chronological order. This is mostly due to me not remembering the exact order things happened in. I was tired.

There was a period of about 45 minutes to an hour during which Juliet had to drink their contrast formula, which she declared wasn't so bad as others had claimed--it just tasted a bit like plastic. They gave her a bit of morphine through the IV. And I'm pretty sure that's the only reason they even gave her an IV, which I find a little bizarre, since the pain from getting that stuck in her arms and wrist seemed significantly worse than the pain in her side, even after the stuff kicked in.

We watched a little TV before and after the scan (after too, because them MDs had to interpret the results), including an episode of Robot Chicken. The ER team seemed a little jovial, as I've said, and maybe even overly happy, which I guess they might need because of the sometimes serious and depressing nature of their job. But that mirth was a little odd, nonetheless.

The results came back inconclusive, meaning they didn't know what was causing the pain. They said it was likely something intestinal, because that kind of thing apparently doesn't show up on a CAT scan. But they did say it definitely wasn't appendicitis or anything in that genre of maladies. So that's good. My guess is that it was just a leftover muscle strain from Juliet being so ill on Monday.

All in all, we were there for nearly four hours, from a little after 7:30 p.m. until somewhere in the ballpark of 11:20. The only real word to describe the experience is probably relaxing. Because that's what it was. We just sat there for a few hours and waited for things to happen, and that's pretty much all we did.

After we left, both rather needing to eat because of not having eaten lunch since around noon, we stopped by a McDonald's, which was closed yet still had all its lights on, then proceeded to drive across the way (the way being Shawnee Mission Parkway) to Wendy's. Mmm, food when you're severely hungry. Unless it causes the hiccups (sorry Juliet...didn't mean to add hiccups to your erstwhile ailments). Then off to home, where we stayed awake a bit longer. Heck, it was already late, not like we'd be much more tired than usual on a Friday workday. I actually feel a little more awake today than normal. Didn't this morning, but I do now. Nice is what it is. Ayuh.

Later:

This being Monday evening:
Juliet is all better now. I think my diagnosis was correct. Didn't yet receive a hospital bill, so I don't know how that's going to go. Fortunately, we have our insurance, so it should at least be bearable. But the important thing is it wasn't so serious as it could have been, and the pain is pretty much gone. Which we prayed for on the way to the hospital. Hm...nifty.