As I start writing this I am sitting in a chair in the Emergency room at the new Abbotsford Regional Hospital.
A cyst in my neck has developed an infection becoming painfully swollen, filled and bulging with pus and other ichors. The pain and the desire to deal with the infection before it spread throughout my body sent me off to my doctor.
Who said it was a matter that needed to be dealt with at the hospital so I headed off to Emergency.
The hour and a half spent in the waiting room was not unexpected and I relaxed and wiled away the time watching several cooking shows on the food network which was playing on one of the several TVs situated around the much more spacious waiting room.
My name was called and I followed the nurse into the emergency room where I entered one of the curtained cubicles and sat down to await the doctor, who arrived shortly.
Taking a look at my neck he expressed his displeasure and upset with the fact that my neck had not been opened and the cyst removed at my doctor’s office rather than sending me to Emergency.
However when this same cyst had developed an infection last year, the doctor at the walk-in clinic only lanced the infection to allow the pus and assorted ichors to drain telling me , as I was handed a prescription for antibiotics, that I needed to go to the hospital to have the cyst itself removed.
Now I really do not care who was correct about where the cyst should have been removed.
What I do care about is the ER doctor expressing his displeasure with me being directed to Emergency, then stalking off to deal with, as he put it, “…real sick people” and leaving me sitting around for hours wondering when he would get around to treating my neck seemingly fallen to the bottom of his list because of his displeasure with my doctor sending me to Emergency.
It was unfair and unprofessional for the ER doctor to allow his pique with my doctor sending me to Emergency to affect his interactions with and treatment of me.
Running out to plug more money to feed the voracious appetite of the parking meter machine I did find myself wondering if part of the reason it takes so long in the ER is because it costs $2 an hour to park with no maximum set as to the amount that can be extorted. I wonder how much faster people would be in and out of ER if a maximum parking charge of 2 hours was set for ER patients?
When the ER doctor deigned to return to me, again raising the subject of my doctor’s action, I was very careful to be noncommittal to avoid spending more hours sitting in the ER. He opened up my neck, cleaning out pus, ichors, and digging out the cyst then sending me off saying I probably did not need antibiotics and that I could have the packing removed in three days or even remove it myself.
Later that night as I was washing the blood that leaked out of the wound and into the collar of my shirt, sincerely regretting the lack of pain medication as the freezing wore off and contemplating the use of alcohol as a pain killer and/or sleep aid, I decided to pay an official office visit to a nurse of gentle hands and compassion the next day. Who did indeed carefully and gently change the bandage for me
When she heard I had not been given a prescription for antibiotics she handed me some extra bandages instructing me to change the bandage every day and pay careful attention to the discharge and if it looked like an infection was setting in to see a doctor for antibiotic treatment.
I was told that I should seek out someone to remove the packing in the wound, rather than remove it myself as suggested by the ER doctor. Preferable someone with access to wound packing materials in case it needed to be repacked. That I should have the packing removed sooner rather than later to avoid any complications or problems.
Fortunately she also informed me as to what over-the-counter pain medication I should seek out to provide relief from the pain.
It was much more pleasant, helpful and informative to deal with a medical practitioner behaving in a considerate and professional manner.