The Emergency Room

On Saturday, I had a monster migraine headache. I tried every remedy ever invented, but still ended up weeping for mercy on the bathroom floor, pinned there for six hours by violent bouts of pain-induced vomiting, telling my husband that I wanted to die. My husband reacted the way most sentient human beings in his situation would react: he told me to bet up and get dressed because we were going to the emergency room.

The emergency room has been my salvation many times in the past for migraine-induced insanity. The good doctors there make sure that you're not, in fact, having a brain hemorrhage. They give you Demerol so that it no longer feels as if someone is stabbing you with an ice pick; they give you intravenous anti-nausea medicine so that you can stop retching long enough to breathe; they give you beloved relief. But on Saturday, when my husband said we were going, I said no -- and not because I didn't need what the emergency room could offer, but because I believed the pain of the emergency room would be worse than the pain of the migraine.

Here's the way my thinking went: it was late on Saturday night in Los Angeles. It was raining for the third day in a row. The emergency room would be a three-ring circus. There would be people there with phantom diseases hauled out tonight because they didn't have any other way to get out of the rain. There would be people there with raging sore throats and ear aches and belly aches because they didn't have access to doctors during regular hours who might help them before their sicknesses got out of control. There would be people there with alcohol poisoning, knife wounds, gunshot wounds. I've been to the emergency room on nights like this. You wait four, five, six hours for your turn. You huddle in the hallway, throwing up in a bucket, your head covered with a blanket because you're unable to tolerate the bright lights and the blaring sound of late-night TV.

I decided I'd rather suffer the pain of the headache than the pain of the emergency room. And it occurred to me that this is what it looks like when our health care system has broken down. People in pain choese to suffer. People in danger stay home. I was lucky because a migraine, though brutal in its fury, can't kill you. But what happens when it's an unrelenting fever, shortness of breath, deep chest pain, and the pain seems easier to bear than the pain of the emergency room? What happens then?

Comments

[anneglamore]

We recently had a "doc in the box" open near us, and he can do the shot for $50 and it took about an hour. I saved hundreds of dollars and about 4 hours compared to my previous ER experiences for migraines.

Yeah after hours clinic!

[HAP]

That is a sadly common experience, and is indeed a symptom of our broken medical and public health systems. Your experience shows why harping on the evils of "inappropriate" ED use also misses half the equation.
Incidentally, please go to the ED when you are in distress. It is not a fun experience, but could save your life. Studies indicate that patients are not good at distinguishing true emergencies from false alarms.

[GnitenGoodLk]

It's worse when you do go, get the relief with Demerol but it is not an approved medication on your plan. How do you find out?

......the $600 bill you get for it.

The next time you go, turn down the Demerol, but get the tests, then get another $1000 bill. Why you ask?

....becaus­e the lab the hospital sent some of your tests to aren't on your plans approved labs.

The tests reveal you do have a problem requiring surgery to alleviate the migraines.

....can't get it. Your plan has dropped you for failing to disclose you had this problem which apparently is chronic, not acute, in nature.

And now? You don't do anything about it. You miss work when you get them. You become run down. You become addicted to OTC pain relievers. Your work suffers.

And the good stuff keeps coming after that.

Hasn't happened to you? You must be fortunate, they haven't gotten to you yet. They're too busy with the millions of other cases they're doing this to, but they'll get to you, eventually, when you aren't in the position to win, you know, when you are sick and really need it.

Our healthcare is broken indeed. Emergency rooms used as clinics, and insurers targeting the sick for profit.

What the heck has our government been doing all of these years? We've known this since 1990!

[fairwitness]

Then you quit voting for Republicans.

(Sorry for your pain--I've been on that floor as well and know.)