How many times have you been to the emergency room?

In My Humble Opinion
82

Do you miss Australia now? :smiley:

Too many to count, because I have been through bouts of poorly controlled asthma and no health insurance (once a week for a couple of months was the highlight.)

Other than asthma:

  1. Sliced open the side of my eye when I was younger than five
  2. Allergic reaction with facial swelling when I was a teenager
  3. Pneumonia and couldn’t breathe, also a teenager, off the back of influenza
  4. Pneumonia and couldn’t breath, as an adult
  5. Back out so severely I couldn’t get off the floor, also my first and only ambulance ride
  6. Pulmonary embolism from a DVT I didn’t know I had. Nearly died that time, three days in ICU, two weeks in hospital.
  7. Twice for gallstones/gallbladder issues - still haven’t had it removed

Wow, I’m hard work!

83

Hmmm- keep thinking of new cases as I go.

Age: Reason
2 OD’d on orange-flavored baby aspirin, there are child proof caps on medicine now for a reason.
4 2 stitches in the lip, fell on the corner of a table
11 13 stitches, bit on the leg by Lassie, my stepmother’s collie
12 tetanus shot; struck by a dart
19 mononucleosis; really was the “kissing disease”- was staying out way too late with my girlfriend & going to work way to early- even for a 19 year-old
19 food poisoning evidently at Thanksgiving, several others in my family were also puking like dogs
23 acute pain in left leg that healed itself in a couple days
30 x-rays for possible broken thumb, fortunately just severely sprained
32 barfing guts out again for some unknown reason
33 severe poison ivy, was all over my arms, chest & stomach and heading southward
50 hit by a car while riding bicycle on midnight bike ride; once again nothing broken, I bounce pretty well

Proud of the fact that I never had to go to the Emergency Room in my 18 years employment at Red Lobster
dumbest reason to be in the emergency ward: 4 year old sister stuck a bead in her nostril

84

It’s odd you should ask, as I was just there Saturday night. I slipped on some ice and bounced my head hard enough to lose my glasses and scrape up my scalp.

Before that, I went in a handful of times for various things. Car wreck, stitches in my hand, heart palpitations, vagaling out in a roomful of paramedics, sprained ankle, passing out and hitting my head…I think that about covers it.

No, come to think of it, I was in twice for a dog bite–once for initial treatment, since the doc in a box wasn’t open when I got off work at 3 am, and again a few days later when I thought the joint had gone septic.

85

Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes.
His hospitalizations for bronchiolitis were in Australia - 3 times, 4-5 days each time, fantastic care: $0.
One slip off the bed, a seven hour ER wait in the U.S., and five stitches: $780. The PA did do a very neat job, so maybe my son will be able to pay us back once his future modeling career takes off.

86

I’ve never been to an actual ER.

I was in a nasty bike accident as an undergrad, though, but it was on campus and the health center did a rush to see me. It was just before they were closing, and if I had been just a little bit later, I would have had to go to the ER. And in grad school I had to do a rush thing at the health center to get what turned out to be an ear infection checked out, or I would have torn my fucking ear out of my head.

So those were two times where I just lucked out - if I’d been far away or the health centers had been closed, I would have had to go to the ER, as I was in pretty severe need of immediate medical attention both times.

87

Age 11: Dirt bike wreck. 21 stitches in leg.
Age 15: Broken thumb from playing football. 6-8 weeks in a cast.
Age 15: Broke same thumb in same place playing dodgeball. Another 6-8 weeks in a cast.*
Age 19: Thought I broke my wrist in a bar fight. Was only severely sprained, ACE bandage for a few days.
Age 40: Kidney stone.

Not counted: 2 trips to the Student Health Center while I was in college, one for some pretty good road rash after I dumped the motorcycle I was riding on some gravel and the other for a sprained ankle from jumping off a stage.
*Cool story, bro: The day I was to get this cast off, Bob and Doug McKenzie were doing an in-store appearance at a record store in the mall. I talked my dad into getting me out of school an hour early so I could get autographs. While standing in line with my dinky pieces of paper, the guy in front of me said, “Why don’t you get them to sign your cast?” They did.

88

Only once when I was 19. I split my forehead open down to the bone (saw my own skull-ick) and had to get 60 stitches.

Based upon our workload here lately though I think everyone in the county has been to our ER. Twice.

89
  1. Broken left elbow (jumping on the bed with another kid, kid pushed me, landed on my elbow)
    8.Broken left wrist (pushed in the play ground.)
  2. dislocated right pinkie (i caught a netball wrong)
  3. broken left wrist (playing a soccer version of piggy in the middle, stuck my arm out to get the ball, and some how ended up breaking my arm.)
  4. broke my nose (tripped, and hit my nose on a water trough)
  5. smashed left wrist (i was getting a chair for me and my friend, while running, after finishing my performance in a school based song/dance comp (I can’t remember whether it was wakakirri or junior rock thingo ma jiggy. we did the same performance)
  6. ear infection
  7. ear infection
  8. ear infection
  9. ear infection.

those last 4 were within 48 hours, two of them involving ambulances.

90

Three times, that I know of (I’m including Urgent Care in these, since they’re similar enough)

  1. Suicide attempt when I was 20
  2. Went in with abdominal cramps - the doctors initially thought was PID, but it wound up being a tumor on my ovary (!!!)
  3. Miscarriage earlier this year that didn’t resolve on its own and may have been ectopic.

My girly bits hate me.

91

-Lung x-ray (WTC related… on girlfriend/DR’s advice)
-104 degree temperature (also WTC time)
-Shattered elbow
-Broken nose
-Broken nose… hell 2-3 more broken noses
-Dislocated shoulder
-Broken finger
-Broken finger
-Bike accident resulting in pissing blood… ehhh… don’t like thinking about it
-Half-severed Achilles tendon (stupid bicycle accident)
-Croup when I was a kid x3

Thank Og for insurance…

92

I had the exact same thing. it caused 4 hospital visits, 2 ambulance rides and three drips.

93

1985-hit by car, broken leg
In recent years I’ve gone because of:
unexplained and sudden allergic reaction (still unexplained and un-duplicated)
Once because of a cough that wasn’t getting any better around Christmas so my doctor’s office wasn’t open.
Once for Ventricular fibrillation (about 130 resting heartrate). Noteable for the ambulance ride from my local hospital to Pittsburgh (AGH) and then a helicopter ride from AGH to Cleveland Clinic for surgery.

94

For myself, once to get what was diagnosed as “positional dizziness” checked. I was 15 and it has mostly disappeared since (among other things, I move more slowly now).

Going to visit patients, enough times to have lost count.

Bringing people in, twice. The first time I was 7: we had left 2mo Littlebro with friends and driven up to Pamplona to get the Christmas presents. On the drive back, I noticed that Middlebro was waaaay too quiet, and looking flushed. I touched him and could feel the heat even through his clothes, before checking his brow. We were driving through Tafalla and, as we went right under this arch which forms a passage between two old palaces, I said in as calm a voice as I could muster “Dad, please stop the car. Mom, Middlebro burns.” We turned the car around and headed back to the big hospital in Pamplona as fast as Dad dared drive. When we got there, someone said to call Dr M, the head of Pediatrics, and someone else pointed out it wasn’t him who was on duty. “It’s Dr J’s grandnephew.” They called Dr M, bet cher ass (Uncle J is still a legend in local medical circles, both for his amazing diagnostic ability and because whenever he found himself in the presence of fools his tongue turned into a cross between a mechanical saw and a rapier). He’s fine and the Proud Daddy of two kids, but we were told that if we’d noticed later (say, the 45’ more we still had left to drive, which would have meant one and a half hour more before he got to the hospital) he would have died.

The second time, I was in graduate school, woke up about 5am, went to get a glass of water and heard noises coming from my landlady’s bedroom. Being the noisy Spaniard that I am, I checked and found her lying in a pool of her own blood: she’d been bleeding internally since thereabouts of 10pm and “hadn’t wanted to bother us”. Among other things, by the time I found her she was dehydrated and her blood sugar was trying to follow dodos. Her daughter happened to be visiting; she was a nurse, but logically seeing her mother like that put her in quite a state, so I got her to stay behind to calm down and look for the paperwork while I rode in the ambulance with Mama (the landlady). She was ok, or as ok as someone with her medica history can be.

95

Not been to ER since I was about 9…
Managed three trips before I was 3 though, all for head injuries… Slipped on tiles while running full speed; someone showed my big bro that magic trick where you pull out the tablecloth really fast, and nothing falls over- turns out it doesn’t work so well on little sisters; third was actually my first baby memory, age 2.5- same bro (accidently!) hitting me in the face with a hammer. Parents thought I’d lost an eye.
Also managed to totally crush my end finger joint in a door hinge at age 9- good for freaking out small kids, 'cos it still looks horrible. :smiley:

I did have to have stitches last year after stabbing my arm on an iron railing, but found a minor injuries unit that was easier to get to…

96

Never in all my 50 years.

When I had my appendix emergency, I went to the regular doctor’s office and they sent me down to the hospital for imaging. Imaging sent me straight to the OR.

My husband has been in the ER at least twice.

97

Three times:

  1. Went on birth control for the first time and it was my first scheduled period. It fucked with my hormones so bad that they gave me some sort of pill they give hemophiliacs to stop bleeding.
    2 & 3. Same weekend. Horrible panic attacks. I had just moved to a new city so I didn’t have a primary care doc or psychiatrist to go to. However, I had been down the anxiety road before. All I needed was them to call the psychiatrist on duty, listen to me when I said I’ve been through this before and my doctor back home prescribed certain pills (I had weaned off them once I got stable before). But no, they wouldn’t get anyone that could treat me on a weekend. I strongly considered checking into the psych ward, but knew there was a 3-day hold. I ended up working out a way to make it the 4 hours back home where Monday morning I was promptly treated by my regular GP and psychiatrist.
98

I only remember two, both in college:

  1. Severe food poisoning (or possibly norovirus). Unable to keep anything down/in, severe dehydration, agonizing muscle cramps.

  2. Skydiving accident. Landed a spinning, partially malfunctioning round reserve canopy.

As a kid I had plenty of bumps, bruises, strange injuries (I recall stitches in my scalp, getting whacked with a corkscrew, stepping on a nail, getting chili oil in my eyes, having a nail hit me in the eye and having a whole mess of redwood slivers jammed under my thumbnail) and the like but I don’t think any of these actually required a trip to the ER. I’ve also broken several fingers, toes and both ankles (all at different times).

99

11: Yard Jart through foot, a few stitches. Whenever it’s brought up around Mom, she turns pale and twitches. What? The eruption of blood when I pulled the Jart out was kinda cool!

13: Face plant on a railroad track, due to the chain falling off my bike. Two stitches right between the eyes. Two days later I had a dance recital, where I received a trophy. My face was so swollen, I didn’t have a bridge of my nose and both eyes were blackened. Lovely.

19: Kidney infection. Mom said the words that will haunt her forever: “You can’t have stress, you don’t have a mortgage!” (despite the fact I was going to school FT, working FT, and planning a wedding). In retropect, this is when the PKD started effing me up.

25: Fell in a boat, holding TheKid. I went one way, my left knee decided to go a different way. Was patted on the head, sent home with an ACE bandage and crutches. Two years later, after numerous ‘sprains’, went to an Orthopedist who scheduled me for ACL reconstruction a week later (I had about 25% of my ACL and 33% of the meniscus left - he wondered how I managed to deal with it for so long)

29: Broken pinky toe, dropped a full jar of mayo on it. Felt stupid for quite a long time.

For ME, that’s been it. TheKid, OTOH, was a frequent flier for quite a while (although the hospital put us in Urgent Care, not the actual ER). She broke a finger, scratched her cornea, dislocated her thumb, had a serious allergic reaction (that trip was fun - 40 miles to the ER in a blizzard), broke two toes, a few serious fevers, and then her appendectomy this summer.

100

Just once, in 2009, when I thought I was having a heart attack. It was biliary colic from gallstones. The offending gallbladder was subsequently removed.

Oh, and when I was ten and had broken my arm while playing in the back yard.

101

Twice that I can remember;

As a kid for pinkeye, I thought I had something in my eye. And later as an adult for a dog bite but that was covered by workman’s comp.

I’ve been to urgent care many times for other things, mostly because I never want to go to an ER again unless I am unable to speak for myself and say “I don’t want to go to the ER!”