The Real ER Experience

Today was brutal. I have been having this terrible jaw and ear pain for weeks that won't go away, and antibiotics aren't doing the trick. So they sent me to the ER for some testing. I arrived around 12:45 pm, after making arrangements for my children and making the 45-minute drive. And there I sat for the next three hours. The other patients there were all waiting in agony as well. One lady in a wheelchair was puking into a container. And old lady behind me was coughing up phlegm into a tissue. One lady started having a seizure, and they got a wheelchair and took her back. We all stared at her. What else was there to do? It was a break in the monotony. I read all of the decent magazines, read the newspaper, did a crossword puzzle, got cookies out of the vending machine, eventually got some bad coffee out of a machine as well. It took a half-hour for it to cool down enough so that I could drink it. This man in a wheelchair with his leg wrapped up kept asking how much longer. He had been there longer than me. The nurses behind the desk were chatting, drinking Diet Mountain Dew, laughing. I was afraid to go to the bathroom for fear I would miss my turn. Eventually I couldn't wait any longer. I checked my email on the computer there. I kept looking at the desk, trying to will the nurse to pick up the microphone and call my name, pronouncing my last name wrong like they always do. I started swearing to myself. Big sighs, eye rolling. Is this some sort of joke? Did they forget about me? Jesus Christ! I looked at some of the others there. We never spoke, but we kind of developed this nonverbal bond anyway. We were all suffering, some of us were sick, some waiting to hear about a loved one. I lay down on the little couch with my purse for a pillow. After about two minutes, I felt that familiar weird feeling in my ear, heard the swooshing sound of my pulse, and blood rushing through my veins. Felt my pain number go from 5 to 7. I sat up and said, "Fuck!"
I couldn't help but thinking about the show "ER" that I have been watching since the first episode, and how different is was from this experience. There was no shouting, no sirens, no hot doctors running around holding their stethoscopes and barking out, "Chem 7, CBC and chest x-ray, STAT!"
Finally, my mispronounced name. They put me in a room, and a physician's assistant came in. I told her the whole story. She examined me. Gave me prescriptions for pain killers. Told me to call my doctor tomorrow. WTF?? I waited three hours for this? Spent $5 in parking, $10 in gas, probably $20 in daycare, and then the ER bill. And wasted an entire afternoon when I could have been writing, doing laundry, sleeping, anything. There aren't enough expletives. By now my whole right side is a throbbing mess. I want to know why. I want it to stop. I was so stupid to go there.
We'll try again tomorrow. This time an actual appointment with a doctor. Hopefully it will turn out better. It couldn't get much worse than today.