Dr. Nincompoop and the Emergency Room Fiasco!

NOTE: This is a story about "Jello Legs" (ME!) and my trip to the Emergency Room of one of our local hospitals a year ago...

I still remember it. What a nightmare that was!

The night before this trip to the hospital, I was walking down the steps in front of a friend's house. Somehow my toes got tangled up on the last step and my feet stayed planted while the rest of my body went front and left.

(YEP! that's me all the way, "front and left - ONWARD!")

I laid there for several minutes truly trying to will my body and brain into the ability of getting up off the ground...

Did anybody offer to come help me?? NO! They did NOT!!

I finally did it, made it to my car, and drove home (It was my right ankle that took most of the punishment, by the way... driving home was not an easy feat!!)

I had to get gas to make it home, so I stopped at a gas station, managed to half-hobble and half-crawl inside and pre-pay the gas, and then back to the car to pump the gas.

I got back in the car and drove the rest of the way home...

Did anybody ask if I was OK? NO!!!! They did NOT!!!

Did anybody ask if I needed help? NO!!! They did NOT!!!

Was it obvious I was in excruciating pain and could not walk? YES!!! It WAS!!!

I finally made it home, where I had to crawl up the steps to get into the house. I was not able to walk at all after that. I had to crawl on my hands and knees to get to the bathroom and the kitchen. (My knees were scraped raw from scuffing them along across the carpet)...

I did not go to the emergency room until the next day, because I have no health insurance and I can not afford an ambulance bill (Thanks to our stinking corporate hijacker government who thinks only "some" people are worthy of medical, dental, and vision care - if you are not one of them, you are just shit out of luck!!!)

I could not get anyone to take me to the emergency room...

Never mind that I help anyone else when they need it...

And I do mean ANYONE who needs help - strangers and people I really don't even like included!

I eventually gave in to the pain and the necessity, and called 911 for the ambulance. By this time I also had a flaming ear-ache, which had me writhing in pain.

The para-medics told me I had to walk down the steps in the front of the house to get to the ambulance...

?????

(I CAN'T WALK!!!! REMEMBER?)

I got to the emergency room only to discover, to my GREAT DISMAY and in confirmation of my WORST FEARS, that the doctor on call was my nemesis, "DR NINCOMPOOP"!

Now, "DR. NINCOMPOOP" earned his name for the second time 2 years ago, when I was in a car accident. I got hit in the chest with an airbag. He assured me all that was wrong was chest wall bruising. "No fractures, no ma'am, go on home, you'll be fine in a few weeks"

Well, 3 months later, the pain was WORSE and not getting better. I could not get up, could not walk, could not cough, it even hurt to burp! The pain was simply excruciating. I went to my own doctor who immediately performed a chest x-ray there in his own office....

I had a completely fractured sternum, top to bottom, and 7 fractured ribs... But according to "DR NINCOMPOOP" there were "NO FRACTURES"!!! Well, the next part of THAT story is I was completely laid up for EIGHT MONTHS!!!

So you can imagine my displeasure when I saw that my doctor would be ''THE NINCOMPOOP" again.

He got this name several years back when he made me wait 3 hours to get an emergency nebulizer treatment when I was having a severe asthma attack and could not breathe! I was with a friend in the examining room trying to keep from turning blue and dying, when I happened to say "This doctor is the biggest NINCOMPOOP I have ever seen in my life!!"

(He was just outside the door, and walked in just then - OOPS!!! He heard everything I said...)

So he KNOWS I think he is a NINCOMPOOP!!!

Well, blahblahblah, and they did the x-rays,

...and the NINCOMPOOP, (as I knew he would... anybody that couldn't see a fractured sternum and 7 fractured ribs certainly would not be able to see a fractured ankle either...) told me there was nothing broken...

(All this time my ankle is swollen like a baseball and throbbing)

...and that they would wrap it and send me home...

At this point I specifically asked him if he was going to give me some crutches so I could get from room to room in the house here. He said he would...

A nurse came in and hurriedly slapped an ace bandage around my ankle. She was on her way out the door, done with me, when I called her back to ask her where were the crutches?

She said "Well, he did not order them..."

I replied that I had just asked him especially about the crutches not five minutes before, and he had assured me I would get the crutches...

Now right about here is where I really started to lose my cool...

Because at this time, they were "done with my case and moving on to the next one". As far as they were concerned, I had been "taken care of and signed off as "treated"...

Not even considering the fact that I CAN'T WALK!!!! REMEMBER???

I don't know how they thought I was supposed to just get up and walk out of the examining room and make the insanely long trek from the ER to the front lobby of the hospital building when I CAN'T WALK!! REMEMBER???

I don't know why it had to be necessary to point this out to them...

So after another hour and a half of waiting in that claustrophobic room with no windows and a closed door (and me with my blood pressure up sky-high by this time, and sweating and shaking because I am CLAUSTROPHOBIC!!!), the nurse finally came back with a pair of crutches...

She took out the screws and adjusted the height of the crutches. She handed them to me and said "Here are your crutches". I looked at them. The top of the crutches, the part that goes under your armpits, was as high as my eyebrows. This is where I started becoming downright bellicose...

I'm like, "Look, how in the f*** do you think I am supposed to get my f***ing armpits up that f***ing high????

Her response: "Well, you SAID you are 5'4" tall, and look on that label there, I put the screw where it says 5'4" so it is RIGHT!"

I replied, "Well, NO it is NOT right, because I can not raise my armpits up as high as my eyebrows - they need to be SHORTER!"

Crutches probably made in CHINA and they put the f***ing label on BACKWARDS!!!! @*$&!

(By this time, my blood pressure is marking 208/186 on the monitor....)

I grabbed the crutches from the nurse, and adjusted the screws myself.

Finally we got the crutches somewhat the right height, and the nurse takes off and she is GONE...

I tried to walk with the crutches. This was not too easy.

Remember, I sprained my LEFT foot, too!

I could only get about ten feet. I had to shout to get someone to bring me a wheelchair so I could get out of the building before I started whacking everybody with those crutches...

I especially wanted to chase down "DR. NINCOMPOOOP" with them....

(Because I had an ear infection and he would not prescribe the ear drops, and he would also not write me a prescription for my blood pressure pills, which I was out of... and my blood pressure is marking 208/186 and rising...)

Finally a little old lady volunteer (probably 85 yrs old...) came with a wheelchair, and pushed me towards the lobby. (With me cussing all the way, in front of God and everybody, and not even caring.... "What is WRONG with these people?" I was thinking.)

"Would you like to sit out here in this lobby and wait for your ride?" the little old lady asked.

"NO!! Get me out of this building before these crutches start whapping somebody!!!"

My niece was supposed to come pick me up at the hospital...

But she was nowhere in sight!

I hobbled back into the hospital and called her, but I couldn't get ahold of her...

"Oh, God!", I thought. "Home is 20 miles from here!"

So, I called a taxi. (I live in the next county...)

They gave me a 3 hr wait time....

There were some young kids there - I offered them $20 to take me home and thank goodness, they did...

(The taxi was going to be $64!)

I didn't believe DR. NINCOMPOOP when he said my ankle is not broken. I am going to make an appointment with my REAL doctor tomorrow! It might take me several weeks to get one. He is very busy - no wonder he is in such demand with doctors like "THE NINCOMPOOP" around...

I was there for 6 hours...He gave me nothing for pain. Nothing for my earache. Nothing for my ridiculously high blood pressure. Was going to make me crawl out of the examining room to get to the lobby...

I did make phone calls and wrote letters to the Board of Directors of this hospital the next day...

They told me they did not have a patient complaint department. They wrote down my complaints just to get me to shut up, and then must have tossed it into the nearest wastebasket, because the person who was supposed to do a follow-up call never did call me back.

(I knew they wouldn't...)

Let me just say one very true thing..

"IF IT CAN HAPPEN, IT WILL HAPPEN TO ME!!!"

And the worst part of it all, was that it happened 2 days before "garden planting day", which is May 1st here in Western Kentucky, so I couldn't plant my garden last year.

I was mad as a wet hen!