I vastly prefer people ask me again. And again. And again. I have never gone into anaphylactic shock and I’d like to go to my grave without ever having it happen. And I am REALLY allergic to things, too.
In the end I never got the HSG test. They did it the “European way”. Which ended up working just fine.
That probably was a crap excuse but there is always the chance that they were genuinely lost.
Hospitals are usually ok for me because they’re taller than the buildings around them, but I can get lost on my own street sometimes. Satnavs also cause problems if they haven’t been updated recently and there’s a new development nearby. Hospital phone numbers often go to press one for… Etc before you can even ask for directions.
And some people who have surgical health needs also have other factors (mental or physical health, medication, etc) that mean that they either can’t plan ahead well or get stressed out finding their way. Depending on the type of surgery, that may be actually quite likely.
A good nurse is the most wonderful thing in the world, and I’ve met some of the best. But when they’re bad–sheesh!
I had to go to the ER for vertigo recently. It was horrid. I kept having to throw up and I had to have help to walk. On the drive to the hospital, I couldn’t open my eyes or I’d have been sick in the car. When we arrived and they brought out the wheelchair, just the moving between car and chair brought on another round of retching. This did not deter the admitting nurse, who began the barrage of questions while they were still wheeling me in. I finally gasped out, “Can you wait a second?” My daughter (who intends to be a nurse herself) told me later that she was ready to hit that woman!
Everyone else was great, though–especially the ones who gave me the Phenergan!
The last time I was visiting someone in a hospital there were signs in the elevators reminding staff not to discuss patient matters.
About 8 years ago, my now late husband was in a Surgical Intensive Care Unit after surgery for complications resulting from his late stage pancreatic cancer. I was walking into visit him and I overheard 2 doctors talking…specifically what I overhead was…“that guy in bed 3… oh, well, he’s going to die”.
Guess what bed my husband was in? While they weren’t saying anything I didn’t already know, the tone was so dismissive that it was really disturbing.
I wish my dad had come in with me when I had to go to the ER for a tooth infection, because the admitter couldn’t understand me talking through a clenched jaw so I had to repeat that I had a very very bad toothache like three times, and it made it hurt even worse to do so.
Funnily enough, the only other time I went to the ER was when I mysteriously lost most of my hearing (in both ears simultaneously so it was probably not wax and I wasn’t sure if it was in danger of being permanent,) but thankfully the admitter understood what I was saying even if I could barely hear myself.
(The doctor in the ER claimed it was wax afterall, but I had already flushed and didn’t want to do so again considering it hurt so much. I think it was a combination of wax and inflammation brought on by a cold.)
Can’t have a thread like this without an honorable mention:
Things I learned from my patients
My story’s not this good, but yours reminded me of the time I broke my arm near the elbow – by the time I got to the hospital, the joint had swollen so much that my arm was frozen in a bent position. The radiology nurse asked me several times to straighten my arm out to get a clear X-ray of my elbow joint and got visibly angry with me when I tried to but couldn’t. I really wanted to say, “Lady, I CAN’T MOVE MY ARM. That is why I’m in the hospital!” but being more easily cowed back then, I just meekly apologized. I still get irritated when I think about it all these years later, though. Surprise, injured people often cannot move their injured limbs!