The ER Trip from Hell

Okay, we've been really bad bloggers. We'll try to do better. For now, let this entertain you.

For Thanksgiving, we headed down south to Tim's parents' house and joined the entire family for the holiday -- all 18 of us! We ate, shopped on Black Friday, ate, played Texas Hold 'Em and ate. Oh, and took Reed to the ER over the weekend for an ear infection.

That was such a story in itself. We took Reed at 4:30 a.m. on Saturday morning when he woke us up with an earache. We walk into the ER, which is totally empty. This was a good thing, I thought. We'd be in and out. Not. I filled out the initial paperwork which only asked for Reed's name and address and why we were there. That's it. It doesn't ask for insurance information at all. I thought this was odd, but whatever. Tim is noticing something different. There are signs on the walls of the ER that say "Verbal and physical abuse of ER staff will NOT be tolerated." "No pillows and blankets allowed." "No sleeping on the floor" and "If you cannot control your children you will be asked to leave." Tim and I are thinking, "WHO are these people's normal clientele?"

We are taken into the triage room where a male nurse asks us why we're there. I tell him Reed has an earache and has been congested for three weeks. He says (quite snottily) "Three weeks and you haven't taken him to the doctor?" Now, I don't know about you, but if I take my kid to the doctor with nothing but congestion, she'll tell us he has a cold and will send us home. Last I heard, there's no cure for the common cold. But I hold my tongue. I'm generally not a confrontational person. He takes his sweet time entering the tons of information (name, address, symptoms, remember?) into the computer. This takes him about 30 minutes. Then we are taken to an exam room.

A doctor arrives and asks what the problem with Reed is. Before I can say two sentences, Reed sniffs very loudly -- basically sucking his mucus back into his nose. Because I am clearly such a bad parent, the doctor says (very condescendingly), "Let me give you a lesson in Parenting 101. Do NOT let him do that. He needs to blow his nose. Him sucking it back up is only going to make things worse." I mean, really, how do you NOT LET a child do that? You can teach them to blow their nose, but they make their own choices. He's 5 years old, for crying out loud. I'm shocked, but manage to say, "Well, I try." To which he replies, "You are the parent. He is the child. Big person (raises his hand up), little person (lowers his hand down). Oh. My. God.
He diagnoses his ear infection, tells me he'll get us some meds and leaves.

Male nurse comes back in and I ask when they'll need our insurance information. He looks uncomfortable and says they'll take it at the end. He said they're not allowed to ask for it at the beginning. O-kaaaaaaaay. Weird.

The registrar lady comes in and takes my insurance card and ID and leaves. We head up to the front, she makes copies of it and then give us a stack of papers to initial. One of these was about Smoking Cessation and how they encourage their patients not to smoke. I try to make a joke and tell her Reed doesn't smoke. She's not amused. She says they hope the parents don't smoke, either. I assure her we don't. She asks what our co-pay is and I tell her I don't have one. This is a good time to tell you that I am VERY well-versed in my insurance coverage, much more so than my insurance company at times. I go into detail about the type of coverage I have and that I have met my out-of-pocket amount for the year, therefore, the insurance company will cover 100%. She seems taken aback that I know so much about it and a little disbelieving that I don't owe anything, but she lets us go.

We leave and head toward the closest Walgreen's. We get there and find out it's not a 24 hour Walgreen's and it's not open. We head back toward Tim's parents house to go back to sleep for awhile, but I look at the prescription we've been given. It's for an antibiotic I'd never heard of and of course the doctor explained nothing to us. Not what we were being given, not the dosage, nothing. I wasn't sure, but thought that the abbreviation on the scrip was for 4 times a day. There was no way we were going to be successful at giving it for 10 days if we had to do it 4 times a day and I was ticked off anyway, so I told Tim to take me back and I would go in and talk to them. He wanted nothing to do with talking to them again, but he took me back. And as we drive up to the door, our male nurse was standing outside....smoking.

I went inside and requested to speak to someone about the prescription. I got a different male nurse. He told me that it was just to be given once a day, so I left. But Tim & I decided that a) they must not ask for insurance up front so as to treat everyone equally -- insurance or not and b) that perhaps they only have male nurses because, given the signs in the waiting room, perhaps they have to also act as bouncers from time to time.

Next time I struggle with a parenting question, perhaps I'll call up that doctor.