Slowly walking on broken glass

So this is an update on my last story...

Today I felt a little out of sorts again. This time the pain had moved to the left side. So after work I decided to go to the hospital and get checked out. I checked in at the Emergency desk, explained the situation, and had a seat in the waiting room. When I entered the waiting room there was only one person ahead of me. I figured I might be lucky and get in to see someone in a relatively short time. I sat and waited. And I waited. I saw people show up who looked in better/similar condition compared to me arrive and be taken in to see someone.

Just as I was beginning to wonder if I'd been forgotten (about 90 minutes after arriving), my name was called. The nurse quickly checked my pulse and temperature and asked an assistant to take me through to "Fast Track". That sounded good, I thought.

I was guided to a fairly large L-shaped room. Along the wall were about 9 or 10 chairs opposite a counter with a sink and a variety of medical supplies. Around the corner there were 2 beds and what looked like a dentist chair, each able to be separated by curtains. Across from the beds were more racks of medical supplies. Virtually everything that could possibly be used to create a splint, cast, sling, bandage, or a Frankenstein-esque creature. How could I possibly know the contents of this room in such great detail, you ask? Because I was there for more than another hour!!! I would've much rather spent that hour out in the regular waiting room.

I spent the first 45 minutes completely alone in this room, aside from one moment when a nurse, whom I actually knew, came in to get some supplies and assured me that it wouldn't be too much longer. Pretty soon a mother came in with her young daughter who had apparently had an x-ray taken already, and was waiting for the doctor to come and have a look. Then a girl in her late teens came in and was told to sit on one of the beds, as the curtain was drawn around her. She was left there alone, however, for a substantial time.

Eventually a doctor came in and called my name. I stood up and was asked to sit on the bed. She asked some questions, poked my stomach a bit, and told me everything was fine. She did offer the choice to me to have x-rays taken to be sure, since glass apparently will show up in an x-ray, but she said they wouldn't make much difference to any sort of treatment since there didn't appear to be any major pain that would be the result of any internal injury due to glass shards in my GI tract. I thought about it for a moment, and I realized that if it was just my stress that had caused me to feel all this pain, then the uncertainty of not having x-rays taken was not going to alleviate anything. I opted to have the x-rays taken.

I was called out into the hallway, given a gown, pointed to a bathroom and told to put it on. (Luckily I was told to keep my pants on, as this thing, despite being wide open in the back, also barely went beyond my hips in length.) I was directed to follow the green line (I felt like I was in the Wizard of Oz) back to the x-ray area. There I had three x-rays taken: one chest and two stomach. They then handed me a piece of paper to take back to Emergency (back down the yellow brick road) and then to return to my room. I went back to the bed and listened to the doctor explain the splint to the small girl with her mother. The doctor came back in to see me and assure me that there was no glass in the x-ray. While this alleviates a lot of the worry, I still felt (and still feel) a bit uneasy in the belly. Hopefully a good night's rest will cure this.

I suppose that lawsuit will have to be put on hold. (But I think I'll write the company anyway to explain just how dangerous this is. The doctor told me of the horrifying pain I'd likely be in if any glass did get in and cause any damage. Er... not pleasant.)

To sum up, I spent more than three hours at the hospital today, and could've walked out with nothing more than a couple pokes and an "it's nothing". Hooray for forced public health care!!!