Yes. It happened again. I ended up back in Emergency. However, this time it wasn't me! Yes, with all the CIDP, kidney stones and an immune system that copped the hugest pounding since I was born you would have thought that I would be the one fronting up for some urgent medical attention, but it wasn't.
So who was it that stole my Sunday from me and made me sit in the hospital for the best part of five hours? Well it's probably best to start at beginning of Sunday morning when it was me that woke up feeling a little under the weather. Not with kidney stones or anything but with that age old and much more common problem, the hangover.
Yes the night before I had tickets to the rugby international between the Wallabies and the Lions and after a resounding one point victory some celebrating was in order. And I probably nudged the bar a little too far.
But since my pain was totally self inflicted I decided that I couldn't stay in bed all morning and got up to take my son to his football game (AFL this time). As I had had a large night I decided it best not to drive and got my wife to drive us to the game. She diligently dropped us off and went on to the shops.
And about five minutes into the game it happened. My son took a tumble and broke his arm. At that time there was not much I could do. The football club were great and patched him up as good as any self respecting first aider would. I called the wife to come back and drive us into the hospital and off we went.
Now I have visited many hospitals around Victoria (mainly as a patient) but this was a new one for me. The Royal Childrens Hospital. And was was a lovely big shiny thing that Melbournians should be proud of. There were little toy stations everywhere and the biggest fish tank I had ever seen outside of an aquarium.
We did not have to wait long before we were triaged and this was probably the only difference I saw in the actual patient treatment. For an adult, they triage you, and then make you wait it out. Here they game my son some pain relief straight away which I thought was great. The amount of time I have spent in Emergency Rooms to see a doctor to write me up for some pain relief after being triaged is nasty. But we still had to wait after that. We finally got an X-ray and then the doctor could patch him up.
I wasn't actually present when the doctor manipulated his arm back into place. We had our daughter with us and we didn't think it wise to expose her to the procedure so her and I explored the hospital whilst my wife tended to our son. FYI, the children's hospital is way more fun than an adult hospital.
Anyway the procedure went well. They loaded him up with laughing gas (nitrous oxide) and fentanyl and although he showed signs of being alert and somewhat uncomfortable during the procedure he said afterwards he must have been asleep because he can't remember a thing. Thank goodness for the amnesiatic effects of the drugs.
Finally after another x-ray we got to take him home. He looked pretty rotten after his ordeal and somewhat uncomfortable but at least he had been properly patched up. We had a follow up on Friday and all was well. They redid the cast and ordered him to wear it for another five weeks. Hopefully it still recovers well.
Till next time, stay well:)
