So today was an interesting day. It was an off-day from work, which I started with my "morning" coffee around 7:00pm. I told the lady there I'd just woke up, and she asked what I did. When I told her where I worked she went off on this awkward rant about how she didn't like my hospital... and I was a bit too dazed to reply well. If I hadn't gotten up I'd have probably worked harder to explain how everyone at the hospital tries the best they can to get everything done quickly but well, and how hard it is to do everything both quickly and properly, but how we really do try for that. As was, I just wanted my coffee and a quick exit.
Anyways. Later after "breakfast" I came back home when it was all dark, and tripped over an empty litter-box in my hallway. I caught my arm/shoulder on the wall falling, heard a bit of a crack, and felt a lot of pain (that quickly subsided in a minute or two). Normally I probably wouldn't do anything about it, but I was a bit nervous since I have a history of shoulder dislocations, as you probably know if you've been following this blog, and wanted to be positive I didn't keep it out over night if something /was/ wrong, even though I was pretty sure it was just in pain but otherwise ok (the biggest clue was I had full range of motion, with pain, and in all my previous dislocations I certainly haven't).
I really didn't want to go to the ED because I know first hand how busy they are, and how many unnecessary cases they get, and I felt kind of awful becoming one of those.... but I ended up going anyways. I have a vacation coming up, and I didn't want it spoiled by an actual injury.
Well, needless to say I was ok (which is fortunate, but was unpleasant at the same time, if that makes any sense. I'd kind of have rather had a minor discernible problem). Everyone was nice and worked well to get me in, and it was fun seeing things at the ED from the side of a patient for a change.
I guess the take-home message here is that I should try to be a bit more mentally accomodating of people who come in with complaints that make one go ::sigh:: It's really easy to get tired of them after you run into enough, and to start looking at people as room numbers. But everyone really is a person, and you shouldn't let yourself forget that. They probably did think they should be in the ER, even if you can't really understand why.
As for the shoulder, it's ok. I got some extra-strength motrin and just a few pills of hydrocodone to last a day or two. Hopefully it will all right itself by then.
As an aside there was another patient earlier this month or last that I'd like to talk about but, obviously, I can't. I'm going to read up on HIPPA and privacy stuff, and see if maybe it would be ok to talk about a hypothetically similar case that doesn't actually have anything to do with the real one, but manages to broadly convey what I was feeling. Because it created an interesting ethical situation and left quite a mark on me.
