Just what I need, a 15-hour wait in emergency ...

Been fighting a bad infection for days now, since my birthday in fact, but thought I could stave it off with meds I had at home and lots of fluids. Nope, couldn't tough it any longer. Too sick.

I would have liked to have gone to a clinic, but by the time I found one that was open and drove over to it, it was "full", meaning not accepting any more patients, NO ONE. That's the difficulty about the holiday period. No medical care. The clinic was still "open" when I called but "closed" within an hour later. I missed the boat.

Only other alternative ... the hospital emergency ward. Yay! (this is sarcastic for those who can't hear me) No way was I going to wait 12 hours+ with two kids in tow. We stayed an hour for the triage then off we went to GB's for a tasty but simple supper prepared by .. me! GB was house-sitting and boy, the kids were happy to discover the 50"+ wide-screen television hooked up to a PlayStation. Lego Star Wars from 4 feet away! 7th heaven!

So absolutely no need to worry about them by the time I had to head back to the hospital. Yup, I ended up waiting and waiting and waiting. Lots of ambulances, which made me wait even longer. The receptionist told me that one came in with a baby whom they had to intubate. Sad. I hope he made it. What a horrible way to end the year.

I saw a woman faint on her way to the bathroom. Seems she had been waiting for a while and had some stomach pain. Someone made a joke about the need to pass out to finally get some attention.

Another man who was left sitting in a wheelchair by some unknown person finally came to and started spitting up stuff on the hospital door close by him. Security was called and it turned out that no one had registered him at all and he himself barely knew who he was. The nurse and two other men eventually came out of triage, fully masked and gowned, and wheeled the unknown spitter into the examination office. He never came back out, so I suppose he got treated right away.

Maybe I should have started horking up stuff too and spitting on the windows.

When they finally called my name, I was so happy! I thought I'd be able to get back in time to get an hour's sleep before having to wake the kids. Nope. Just a false alarm. "Could you please put this on?" I undressed and slipped on the flimsy hospital gown. Great, it was nice to wait there in the examination room half naked for an hour and 20 minutes with the ventilation blowing cold air on me.

Got back to GB's just in time to wake the kids. Needless to say, after driving them back to their dad's, I was happy to finally get home, take my meds and get some sleep.