Whew. I sure did have a rough weekend. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I just had this pain. It's kind of hard to explain really...it just hurt. My kidney on the left side was mad at me or something. haha! Christmas was hard enough...and this was just the cherry on top. Deciding to just call my kidney dr on Monday, I just took medicine for pain (which I absolutely despise!).
Monday morning came and I was greeted by a woman from Nephrology's answering service. :/ Not cool. Come to find out, they are closed all week. Ok. So I call Dr Veys' office...closed. :/ Double not cool. The lady at the answering service told me that she wasn't calling Dr Newby, the on-call doc, unless it was an emergency... and hung up. So on top of hurting, now I'm just mad.
The only other option I had was a walk-in clinic. It's hard for me to go to one of those when I have kidney pain or any infection. I simply know more than they do about it, so they end up just sending me to the hospital. So I went to Hamilton Convenient Care. They closed 3 minutes before I got there. That's frustrating. The emergency room was my last option.
As soon as I walk into the door, I saw 2 women throwing up, and at least 25 people. Gross. So I filled out my papers. They called me into triage. My bp was up. Surprise. It's always up. Thank you, kidneys. :) I went back and sat there with the people of sickness...expecting to be waiting for about2 hours because they literally had no rooms available. It took about 15 minutes in the waiting room when I heard my name. :) I felt a little bad because everyone in that waiting room stared at me because I came way after they did, but at the same time, they do take people by the seriousness of their illness. So I didn't mind too much!
My nurse, Steve C., was amazing!!!!! It took maybe 10 minutes for the Dr to come in to start me on some IV fluids and get some pain medicine in me. This was the very first time that the Dr and nurse actually listened to what I was saying and paying attention to how I was feeling. I was actually cared about and not treated as though I was just another stop or just a chart. He was super careful while putting in my IV line. I'm allergic to morphine so they watched me super close to make sure I wasn't allergic to Dilaudid. Steve came in about every 15-20 minutes to check on me, to get my vitals, and to see what my pain level was.
It's not even as though I was given preferential treatment! They both treated all of their patients this way. I'm not sure that I've ever been to even just a regular dr office where this happened. I am absolutely blown away by their attitudes and compassion.
It all came at the right time too. Of course. I believe God uses people to help you in every way. I needed physical help...and He put me there at just the right time, and freed up that room so that dr and that nurse would be assigned to me. Don't tell me God doesn't work in mysterious ways. :) He does. I have proof. It's not a coincidence...none of this is. :)
I'm gonna find a way to do a survey of some sort and let the hospital know how Steve C. the nurse and that dr treated me as a patient. They'll never know what an impact they made in my heart at that point in time.
