In Which We Visit the ER (in Hawaii)
Jan. 6th, 2020 07:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aYeah, I wrote yesterday that it was starting to feel more like real life out here in Kauai, and today we got that in spades.
I woke up a bit before my alarm again, but was feeling a little sick to my stomach and it was raining, so I didn't go for a walk.
Instead at 7.30 or so I headed downstairs to begin my early workday. It was supposed to be mail-cleanup today where I caught up on queries, questions, and TODO items mailed me in the last two weeks.
But I pretty soon found that my keyboard for my Mac Mini, packed in my luggage, hadn't survived the trip. The "P" key was pretty non-responsive. One YouTube video later I learned how to pop up the keys, but I ended up having to pop up the "P", then the "O" to figure out how to get the "P" back in place. And the YouTube videos make it look easier than it is. I sort of got the keys working again, so my tabletop machine isn't totally without "P"s (or "O"s) but I really need a new keyboard, which I've ordered.
(Sigh. Move casualty #1.)
Meanwhile, Kimberly had revealed to me over the weekend that she'd been having some disturbing symptoms which her post-surgery instructions said should lead her to see a doctor right away. So, she tried to call her new PCP this morning and the office said they definitely couldn't get her in today (which isn't a surprise, since she hasn't even had her getting-to-know-you appointment yet), but they thought she should go to urgent care or the ER.
We talked to my dad, and he thought I shouldn't drive while I was distracted by Kimberly's health, which was probably wise. So he came over to drive us to the closest urgent care facility, which is a new-ish facility in Koloa, down at what I think of as the Lappert's shopping center.
They were less useless than most urgent care facilities that I'd been to, in that they affirmed that there was cause for concern, acknowledged that they didn't have the test equipment to resolve it, and sent us on.
From there it was on to Wilcox Hospital ER, which is in Lihue. (Which made it double good that I didn't drive: the Koloa/Poipu area would have been fine, while Lihue is a little city.)
The general experience was much better than the crappy, crappy ER at Alta Bates hospital in Berkeley. They had Kimberly back seeing a nurse within a few minutes of our arrival, and from there back into an examination room very quickly. We saw another nurse there, then a doctor, probably within an hour. Blood was also taken.
That was where there was the only real wait. They said they'd have blood test results done within an hour, but it was about two and a quarter hours before the doctor came back. (There was apparently a surge of emergencies, some of them involving children.)
End result: nothing to see. The fear was that Kimberly might be bleeding internally, and that seems to be not the case, from high hemoglobin results and such. The doctor found it likely that Kimberly's symptoms were the results of her new iron supplements. She'll stop taking them and see what happens. (Which was a scientific possibility that I too had considered a few days ago, before realizing that of course it was best to see a doctor first.)
We were starving by this point, because ERs seem to be places of insatiable hunger. So on the way back home, my dad drove us through McDonalds and we picked up fast-food dinner and chocolate shakes. A reward for a hard day.
(I'd say my poor dad didn't get a reward, but he got a tasty encrusted mahi at the WIlcox cafeteria.)
Even if there was nothing to see, going out to the urgent care, and then the ER, was absolutely the right thing to do, based on the instructions after Kimberly's surgery, and it's great to know all is going well.
But it was an exhausting day; we've mostly collapsed since we got home.
And that was how we ended up in the ER on day six on Kauai.
I'm going to try that "work" thing again today, since I didn't get much done today. (I did manage to work through some of my emails and TODOs while waiting with Kimberly at the ER, and I got my printer setup because we desperately needed to print out Kimberly's new Medicare supplement card, but that was it for the day.)
And maybe Julie the Benz (and new driver Shannon) will get some exercise tomorrow too.
I woke up a bit before my alarm again, but was feeling a little sick to my stomach and it was raining, so I didn't go for a walk.
Instead at 7.30 or so I headed downstairs to begin my early workday. It was supposed to be mail-cleanup today where I caught up on queries, questions, and TODO items mailed me in the last two weeks.
But I pretty soon found that my keyboard for my Mac Mini, packed in my luggage, hadn't survived the trip. The "P" key was pretty non-responsive. One YouTube video later I learned how to pop up the keys, but I ended up having to pop up the "P", then the "O" to figure out how to get the "P" back in place. And the YouTube videos make it look easier than it is. I sort of got the keys working again, so my tabletop machine isn't totally without "P"s (or "O"s) but I really need a new keyboard, which I've ordered.
(Sigh. Move casualty #1.)
Meanwhile, Kimberly had revealed to me over the weekend that she'd been having some disturbing symptoms which her post-surgery instructions said should lead her to see a doctor right away. So, she tried to call her new PCP this morning and the office said they definitely couldn't get her in today (which isn't a surprise, since she hasn't even had her getting-to-know-you appointment yet), but they thought she should go to urgent care or the ER.
We talked to my dad, and he thought I shouldn't drive while I was distracted by Kimberly's health, which was probably wise. So he came over to drive us to the closest urgent care facility, which is a new-ish facility in Koloa, down at what I think of as the Lappert's shopping center.
They were less useless than most urgent care facilities that I'd been to, in that they affirmed that there was cause for concern, acknowledged that they didn't have the test equipment to resolve it, and sent us on.
From there it was on to Wilcox Hospital ER, which is in Lihue. (Which made it double good that I didn't drive: the Koloa/Poipu area would have been fine, while Lihue is a little city.)
The general experience was much better than the crappy, crappy ER at Alta Bates hospital in Berkeley. They had Kimberly back seeing a nurse within a few minutes of our arrival, and from there back into an examination room very quickly. We saw another nurse there, then a doctor, probably within an hour. Blood was also taken.
That was where there was the only real wait. They said they'd have blood test results done within an hour, but it was about two and a quarter hours before the doctor came back. (There was apparently a surge of emergencies, some of them involving children.)
End result: nothing to see. The fear was that Kimberly might be bleeding internally, and that seems to be not the case, from high hemoglobin results and such. The doctor found it likely that Kimberly's symptoms were the results of her new iron supplements. She'll stop taking them and see what happens. (Which was a scientific possibility that I too had considered a few days ago, before realizing that of course it was best to see a doctor first.)
We were starving by this point, because ERs seem to be places of insatiable hunger. So on the way back home, my dad drove us through McDonalds and we picked up fast-food dinner and chocolate shakes. A reward for a hard day.
(I'd say my poor dad didn't get a reward, but he got a tasty encrusted mahi at the WIlcox cafeteria.)
Even if there was nothing to see, going out to the urgent care, and then the ER, was absolutely the right thing to do, based on the instructions after Kimberly's surgery, and it's great to know all is going well.
But it was an exhausting day; we've mostly collapsed since we got home.
And that was how we ended up in the ER on day six on Kauai.
I'm going to try that "work" thing again today, since I didn't get much done today. (I did manage to work through some of my emails and TODOs while waiting with Kimberly at the ER, and I got my printer setup because we desperately needed to print out Kimberly's new Medicare supplement card, but that was it for the day.)
And maybe Julie the Benz (and new driver Shannon) will get some exercise tomorrow too.