Emergency Room

So, I spent about eight hours in the emergency department last night. That was fun.

Okay, it wasn’t fun. But I did have an interesting thought.

It stems from the (completely non-earth shattering) premise that no one likes having to go to emerge. And because nobody wants to go there, they also want to get out as fast as they can. Which is completely understandable, but in reality, maybe not the thing to hope for.

I was in emergency for the same reason a friend of mine was a few months ago. When you walk in the door, there’s a sign saying to sit on the bench, unless you’re experiencing the symptoms we both were. In that case, you’re to go to the desk and tell them, and they’ll put you at the head of the line.

When you go into emergency with chest pains, things start to move awful fast. Like, an ECG within minutes kind of fast. But when the results are pretty normal, as both my friend’s and mine were, things slow down.

And as maddening as that can be, it’s generally a good thing. Because if you keep going fast, chances are whatever’s wrong with you is fucking serious.

It’s a bit of a brain twist, wanting to get out of emergency fast but realizing that slow’s probably better. Because the difference between slow and fast could mean the difference between walking back out the door into the overfull parking lot and being wheeled further into the building on a gurney.

Both my friend and I walked out the front door. It was eight hours later, and we were exhausted, but we were both happy to take it.