I was talking to a friend last week about emergency room visits. She found it odd that I’ve been there at all, and really odd that I’ve been so many times. She’s never been, not even once – until yesterday. Part of her e-mail said “I woke up on the bathroom floor covered in blood.”
So how many times have you been, and why?
Me:
Broken wrist
Fever of 103
Twisted finger
Fever of 103 with nausea (campylobacter)
Sliced open arm
Serious constipation
Persistent flu, possibly pertussis (turned out not to be)
Finger that wouldn’t stop bleeding
Two broken feet
I’m sure there’s more, I just can’t remember them all.
Appendicitis. Slow-bleeding ovarian cyst. 102-degree fever and vomiting on a Sunday night. Uncontrollable puking at 24 weeks during my pregnancy, requiring IVs (although that one bypassed the ER and went straight to L&D).
Three times for AFib.
Once when my stomach perforated.
Once in the eighties when I crashed my motorcycle without a helmet.
Once in the 60s when I crashed my bike racing downhill.
A couple of weekend ear infections when I was a kid.
A blockbuster “it hurts so much I can’t even focus my vision” headache a week after I gave birth to MiniWhatsit.
The time I gave myself a concussion by slamming my sister’s car door into my head accidentally.
Probably a few more I’m forgetting. Plus all the times I’ve been there for my kids, most notably for Whatsit Jr.'s fractured elbow and many years before that, his “bad cold” that turned out to be RSV + MRSA pneumonia and nearly killed him.
Just once, when I started bleeding during my 23rd week of pregnancy. I called my midwife, who told me to go to the ER in my town with an advanced NICU (level III), rather than her hospital an hour away with a Level II NICU.
The funniest/worst part was watching them scramble to figure out if I should be sent to Labor and Delivery or not. 23 weeks isn’t technically viable, you see, but it’s sooooo close.
They sent me to L&D, and all was right eventually. So I entered through the ER, but didn’t get treated there.
Fell, hit something, and managed to almost slice my ear off, requiring it to be glued back in place (stitches weren’t an option for some reason). I was 8.
Appendicitis, but later proven to have been a kidney stone (learned after my appendix was gone, of course).
Got really lethargic and weird and dizzy after taking some meds and my boyfriend brought me in because he was worried about me. They put me on a heart monitor and gave me an IV, told me to stop taking those and talk to my doc about my reaction.
Once more for kidney stone pain.
There might be a couple of others but I can’t remember. Most other minor emergencies were dealt with by my regular doctor or an urgent care place.
Only once, and there was nothing they could do for me. I burned the holy hell out of my hand on a skillet that had been in the oven (but surprisingly looked just like a skillet that had just been on a stove, go figure) and it hurt so bad that I went to the ER. I guess it was dumb, but I’d never burned myself like that before and it hurt! I got to the triage nurse after a while and he said it was just second degree and there probably wasn’t a whole lot they could do for me and it would be a couple hours, so… and I went by CVS and bought everything with “burn” on the packaging.
So I’ve been in the ER but not been treated there. I think most (cautious) people probably go their whole lives without having to go there. My boyfriend had only been in the sense that he was there with me that night.
After the age of three or so, I tend to agree with you, but I think most little kids have at least one emergency room trip, if not several. Also, the proliferation of urgent care clinics in the last 15 years has certainly made ER visits less common. A high fever used to be a reason to take a 2 year old to the ER on a Sunday afternoon. Now there are clinics.
I’ve only been once since the age of 2: before that I know I had stitches twice, and for all I know there were other trips for high fever or whatever. When I was about 20, I thought I might have broken my foot so I went in, though in retrospect I was overreacting.
Only one time in my whole life, for a miscarriage (…of justice! sorry. sorry.)
I did burn my arm terribly one year when I was fifteen or so but we didn’t go to the emergency room; we went to one of those clinics instead. We still had to wait a while, but it really wasn’t that urgent, even though it hurt like a bitch.
I’ve never broken anything. I’ve never even fractured anything.
I’ve never had the flu.
No kidney stones.
No chest pain.
No bleeding that wouldn’t stop, not even with the glass cut I got as a child.
Even when I had malaria and had a fever of 102 I didn’t go to the ER. I guess it just wasn’t done in my house.
ETA: Ah. I probably would have had to go to the ER as a child; I was in India, but I had a malarial infection the first time when I was two. They did rush me to the doctor because I was turning blue with shivers, but I don’t even know if they had emergency rooms or what. I just know my aunts (who I was living with at the time) were dirt-poor, and my aunt rushed me on the back of her scooter to the doctor.
No idea when I may have gone as an infant. But the ones I know about:
Stitches in chin
Stitches in ankle
Wrist fracture
A quite spectacular leg fracture (both tibia and fibula) that resulted in 2 visits: one in Florida, where I broke it (they admitted me overnight), and again when I got home, straight form the plane, on a stretcher in a puke-covered housecoat, so weak I couldn’t even stand up on crutches. I felt much better after some morphine and a liter of IV fluids, but it was a week before the swelling went down enough that they could do the leg surgery.
Me? Twice. Both times, it happened in the middle of the night and I needed treatment before the doctor’s office opened. One was due to a ring that was too tight on my finger; the other was when I accidentally scratched my cornea while sleeping. Both times, I got in rapidly (there aren’t many people there at three in the morning).
I’ve brought more people to the ER than I’ve been myself.
The last two times I’ve been for me?
Last time was maybe 3 years ago – my goiter decided to press against my windpipe and I literally couldn’t breathe/swallow at work. Someone drove me there. Tests confirmed it. A month later I had a total thyroidectomy.
Time before that? Summer of 2004, I believe. Got my heel/ankle caught under a metal door and it sliced part of my Achilles tendon. 22 stitches total. I was on crutches for almost 2 months afterward and spend the rest of the year in PT.
