- Jun 18, 2009
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A significant amount of time is devoted to trying to equate America's healthcare with what it costs, and how much people have to pay for their own lives. I have always maintained that the debate is about insurance and government overreach, and it has always irritated Me when people say our healthcare is not the best.
Last Saturday night, I managed to get a first-hand accounting of just how good our healthcare really is.
I live in the boonies as far as the rest of the country goes. I am not so far off the beaten path that I can't be in a midsized metropolis within 40 minutes or so, but this area even in the best of economic times is a backwater and somewhat depressed.
I live about a block and a half from our borough's hospital. Calling it a hospital is a great exaggeration most of the time. It is more like a walk-in clinic where they refer you to better services if something is beyond their immediate ability to accomplish. Such was the case Saturday evening.
I was watching a movie and keeping an eye on some posts here at USMB and felt pretty tired so I decided to lay down and take a nap. About an hour or so later, I woke up and felt pretty bad. I had some pain in My chest and felt a bit wheezy. I've had this pain before and had chalked it off to angina and I had forgotten to take My blood pressure meds earlier that day. So I took the meds and waited for the pain to subside.
It didn't.
So I took another beta blocker thinking that if I could just get My heart rate down, the pain would go away. My wife was starting to nag Me about going to the hospital but I've done this before and resisted. About a half hour later, the pain was only not going away, but it seemed to be getting a bit more intense and I was beginning to sweat. So I gave in to the nagging and said I'd go to the emergency room. While My wife was getting ready (she was in pj's, sweater and no bra), I sat at My desk waiting and wondering if in truth, this was actually happening.
I became really concerned when she said she was ready and I found that I couldn't stand up without help from her and My middle daughter (who had been staying the night with us).
Fast forward about 8 minutes to the emergency room where I had to have help getting out of the car and no sooner had I gone through the doors that I started vomiting and broke into a flop sweat.
The staff (all residents of our little podunk town) immediate set to helping as all emergency rooms do. Luckily, the ER was empty and as I sat on the bed vomiting into a shopping bag, they brought in an EKG machine. The guy running that machine is an EMT and veteran of the Middle East conflicts so I knew I was in good hands. No sooner had he managed to get Me attached to the machine that he let out a little, "Oh yeah," but he didn't elaborate. Instead, he picked up the phone and contacted the On Duty Doc.
It was then that the ER kicked it up a notch and though they were never panicked or hurried, they found a much higher gear. The nurse was talking about a helicopter ride to Scranton (Which I objected to, I didn't really think it was necessary as I was convinced that while it was serious, it wasn't that serious). Anyway, from the time I walked into the ER here in town to the point they put Me in an ambulance was about 35 minutes. This is complete with a call to the hospital I was headed for and the cath lab there.
When I arrived at the Hospital in Scranton, they didn't even bother with the paperwork (it is possible they were doing all of this over the phone while I was in transport) and I was sent straight up to the cath lab where they stripped Me down and shaved Me (I am still convinced that the nurse who did that hated men as I had a bit of blood the next day when I managed to to to the bathroom, but its all okay because the important part is still there) and they then proceeded to insert a cath into My wrist where they put in two large stents into My heart.
I was awake for all of this.
When the doctors finished and I was asking about My wife so I could go home (I was feeling pretty damn good at the time) the doctor looked at Me with a worried frown and said I was going to the ICU because I had just had a major heart attack. Well, I guess that cemented it for Me. My wife was there when they wheeled Me out of the cath lab and they stopped long enough for Me to reassure her that I was okay, and I've been in the hospital until I came home just an hour ago.
The total time from when I agreed to go to the hospital to the time I was in an ICU bed was maybe 3.5 hours. I'll tell you that some of it might have been the drugs, I was feeling pretty damn good. In fact, I've felt better since that moment than I have in about two years.
So, backwoods hospital to recover from a heart attack in about 3 days is My definition of some pretty damn fine medical care.
However, I think I'm going to stop wasting as much time here as I have been in the past year. I'm not saying that I'm leaving (we all know how that goes), but I am going to cut back on the nonsense.
Last Saturday night, I managed to get a first-hand accounting of just how good our healthcare really is.
I live in the boonies as far as the rest of the country goes. I am not so far off the beaten path that I can't be in a midsized metropolis within 40 minutes or so, but this area even in the best of economic times is a backwater and somewhat depressed.
I live about a block and a half from our borough's hospital. Calling it a hospital is a great exaggeration most of the time. It is more like a walk-in clinic where they refer you to better services if something is beyond their immediate ability to accomplish. Such was the case Saturday evening.
I was watching a movie and keeping an eye on some posts here at USMB and felt pretty tired so I decided to lay down and take a nap. About an hour or so later, I woke up and felt pretty bad. I had some pain in My chest and felt a bit wheezy. I've had this pain before and had chalked it off to angina and I had forgotten to take My blood pressure meds earlier that day. So I took the meds and waited for the pain to subside.
It didn't.
So I took another beta blocker thinking that if I could just get My heart rate down, the pain would go away. My wife was starting to nag Me about going to the hospital but I've done this before and resisted. About a half hour later, the pain was only not going away, but it seemed to be getting a bit more intense and I was beginning to sweat. So I gave in to the nagging and said I'd go to the emergency room. While My wife was getting ready (she was in pj's, sweater and no bra), I sat at My desk waiting and wondering if in truth, this was actually happening.
I became really concerned when she said she was ready and I found that I couldn't stand up without help from her and My middle daughter (who had been staying the night with us).
Fast forward about 8 minutes to the emergency room where I had to have help getting out of the car and no sooner had I gone through the doors that I started vomiting and broke into a flop sweat.
The staff (all residents of our little podunk town) immediate set to helping as all emergency rooms do. Luckily, the ER was empty and as I sat on the bed vomiting into a shopping bag, they brought in an EKG machine. The guy running that machine is an EMT and veteran of the Middle East conflicts so I knew I was in good hands. No sooner had he managed to get Me attached to the machine that he let out a little, "Oh yeah," but he didn't elaborate. Instead, he picked up the phone and contacted the On Duty Doc.
It was then that the ER kicked it up a notch and though they were never panicked or hurried, they found a much higher gear. The nurse was talking about a helicopter ride to Scranton (Which I objected to, I didn't really think it was necessary as I was convinced that while it was serious, it wasn't that serious). Anyway, from the time I walked into the ER here in town to the point they put Me in an ambulance was about 35 minutes. This is complete with a call to the hospital I was headed for and the cath lab there.
When I arrived at the Hospital in Scranton, they didn't even bother with the paperwork (it is possible they were doing all of this over the phone while I was in transport) and I was sent straight up to the cath lab where they stripped Me down and shaved Me (I am still convinced that the nurse who did that hated men as I had a bit of blood the next day when I managed to to to the bathroom, but its all okay because the important part is still there) and they then proceeded to insert a cath into My wrist where they put in two large stents into My heart.
I was awake for all of this.
When the doctors finished and I was asking about My wife so I could go home (I was feeling pretty damn good at the time) the doctor looked at Me with a worried frown and said I was going to the ICU because I had just had a major heart attack. Well, I guess that cemented it for Me. My wife was there when they wheeled Me out of the cath lab and they stopped long enough for Me to reassure her that I was okay, and I've been in the hospital until I came home just an hour ago.
The total time from when I agreed to go to the hospital to the time I was in an ICU bed was maybe 3.5 hours. I'll tell you that some of it might have been the drugs, I was feeling pretty damn good. In fact, I've felt better since that moment than I have in about two years.
So, backwoods hospital to recover from a heart attack in about 3 days is My definition of some pretty damn fine medical care.
However, I think I'm going to stop wasting as much time here as I have been in the past year. I'm not saying that I'm leaving (we all know how that goes), but I am going to cut back on the nonsense.
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