Today I am thankful that my best friend Priscilla is OK. She fell down a few steps inside of her house. Fortunately, she had her cell phone in her hand and called her friend who lived close by and had her spare key. After a trip to the ER, she found out that she had no broken bones! I am so happy about that. Priscilla lives alone so she could have been seriously hurt and just lay there. About ten years ago, I fell down on the steps in my house, probably I fell down about 10 steps, I was carrying too much laundry at the time. I remember sitting at the bottom of the steps and thinking OK, now what do I do? I just laid there in pain and eventually fell asleep. When I woke up, I felt sore and had a few bruises but I was OK. The older we get, the more careful we need to be. I am now nervous walking on ice, I am always afraid that my ankle will twist. My sister and I both have weak ankles! I am just so thankful that Priscilla is OK and was checked out by the ER near her. She said the ER saw her right away, no one else was waiting. That alone is something to be really thankful for. We have had to take Olivia to the ER so many times. We always wait at least 4 or 5 hours, sometimes longer. Priscilla was telling me that she thinks ERs should have minute clinics with NPs or PAs. People without insurance often go to ERs because ERs can't turn anyone away regardless of their ability to pay. When we had to take Olivia to Penn's ER because she had difficulty catching her breath and pain, we waited about 7 hours. Then I went crazy and they saw her because I was screaming that her lips were turning blue. She had just been discharged from that hospital the day before from spinal fusion surgery. They finally took her back, did a CAT scan and found that she had bilateral pulmonary emboli. I was furious that she was having problems and the staff thought she was OK. The ER probably had about 35 people waiting, the people waiting were there to see a doctor about painful headaches and sore throats. The woman sitting next to me was with her husband who had had cancer the year before and she thought it had come back. Why an ER for that? She told me that her husband's doc couldn't see them that day. Eventually they left because her husband wanted to go home to bed. Now some hospital systems have daytime into evening open clinics open 7 days a week for sick people but you need to have insurance to be seen. One of Olivia's nurses told me that if you need to be seen right away at an ER one should tell them that you have the worst headache you have ever had and you feel like your head is going to burst and then they see you right away.
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