Ministry of Pain
Footballguy
I am doing just fine and the reason I had to go to the hospital has nothing to do with CV-19, however...for those of you that might need to make a visit to one of your local hospitals in the coming weeks for any variety of reasons, let me tell you how this went tonight because it startled me how things are changing rapidly and new rules and safety measures are being implemented on the fly. This is Palm Beach County in case you are wondering.
First of all my wife works in this hospital and together we also raise money for the hospital and she has the official hospital badge around her neck as we are making our way up to the front, surely they will let us right in, wouldn't you think? We even called and explained why we needed to come in and were told no problem, no wait time etc...however when we arrived we were stopped 15-20 feet back from the main doors and they had set up a makeshift check in, everyone in full gear and masks. The person who spoke to us first was stressed beyond anything I have seen for a fairly empty wait room but I understood why.
My wife started getting upset because he was asking a LOT of questions about where we have been in the last week or two...we're still 20 feet from the door. I wasn't in the mood to answer questions and also could not hear very well but thanked my wife for trying to speak for me and told her "I got this" and told the gentleman I was happy to answer ALL of his questions and he could talk to me directly. There had to be at least 20 different ways he asked me if I had been on a plane, traveled to NYC/CHI/NO, had the sniffles, had a fever, showed signs of the flu and the questions just kept going and I just smiled and kept answering them. My first bit of advice is be patient and don't play games with the first line fo folks just trying to check you in if you need medical care.
And I want to tell you that it's likely if and when you go, you are going to feel like you might have stepped into a movie set or feel like you are somewhere else, I'm just telling you it's chilling when you see what is happening first hand with your own eyes.
Once I was inside almost none of the folks coming and going that worked for the hospital would make eye contact with me which just felt weird. Some of the staff seemed confident but many looked scared in a way I just haven't seen. During my visit I must have washed my hands at least 4-5 times. The ER doctor fell out of the sky, this guy had grown up in California, studied in NYC, now in Florida, he was a very kind young man. I thanked him for working thru this awful time and his words were..."This is what I signed up for" and I almost started to tear up but I'm older than this Doogie Howser and didn't want to do that. We lost 2 ER doctors in Miami from a headline I had seen earlier in the day. I left with a much greater admiration for what these folks are really having to go thru right now. If you just see it on TV it might not seem all that real.
The lady who checked me out told me to burn my clothes basically and I don't feel she was kidding. She was not a doctor or nurse but she was scared and I wanted to get out of that hospital as quick as possible. And if I could have avoided the hospital I would have. She also made sure to let me know that this is only the tip of the iceberg for how things will look in a week or two.
And I'm sure some of you want to know why I had to check in tonight and I will now share why...quite frankly its a little embarrassing but I was going for my walk tonight and I got a bug of some size that flew into my ear and kept buzzing deep inside my ear drum. We were at the middle part of a 3 mile walk and it took a while to get back with this thing buzzing and causing me to drop down once or twice from the pain inside my ear. It wasn't quite Khan but my ear was already leaking liquid wax from the bug burrowing around in there. I tried to dislodge it and I kept hoping it would fly back out but no luck. I tried to do the worst thing possible and use a Q-tip back at the house. The Doctor at the hospital found it quickly but whatever Plan A was involving a rather long and shiny piece of metal didn't work but it sure got that bug to start squirming around in my ear canal and I was starting to make a howling noise so we went to Plan B involving a tube of something squeezed into my ear and the doctor says "There it is" and he pulls out a black beetle and I said "I'll take that" so we decided to put it in a specimen jar for me to take home and look at for a while. It was a lot bigger than a little fly or whatever I thought it was.
If you can avoid it, stay away from the hospitals right now. And if you do go I would be very thankful if they even open the door for you. It felt like a war zone.
First of all my wife works in this hospital and together we also raise money for the hospital and she has the official hospital badge around her neck as we are making our way up to the front, surely they will let us right in, wouldn't you think? We even called and explained why we needed to come in and were told no problem, no wait time etc...however when we arrived we were stopped 15-20 feet back from the main doors and they had set up a makeshift check in, everyone in full gear and masks. The person who spoke to us first was stressed beyond anything I have seen for a fairly empty wait room but I understood why.
My wife started getting upset because he was asking a LOT of questions about where we have been in the last week or two...we're still 20 feet from the door. I wasn't in the mood to answer questions and also could not hear very well but thanked my wife for trying to speak for me and told her "I got this" and told the gentleman I was happy to answer ALL of his questions and he could talk to me directly. There had to be at least 20 different ways he asked me if I had been on a plane, traveled to NYC/CHI/NO, had the sniffles, had a fever, showed signs of the flu and the questions just kept going and I just smiled and kept answering them. My first bit of advice is be patient and don't play games with the first line fo folks just trying to check you in if you need medical care.
And I want to tell you that it's likely if and when you go, you are going to feel like you might have stepped into a movie set or feel like you are somewhere else, I'm just telling you it's chilling when you see what is happening first hand with your own eyes.
Once I was inside almost none of the folks coming and going that worked for the hospital would make eye contact with me which just felt weird. Some of the staff seemed confident but many looked scared in a way I just haven't seen. During my visit I must have washed my hands at least 4-5 times. The ER doctor fell out of the sky, this guy had grown up in California, studied in NYC, now in Florida, he was a very kind young man. I thanked him for working thru this awful time and his words were..."This is what I signed up for" and I almost started to tear up but I'm older than this Doogie Howser and didn't want to do that. We lost 2 ER doctors in Miami from a headline I had seen earlier in the day. I left with a much greater admiration for what these folks are really having to go thru right now. If you just see it on TV it might not seem all that real.
The lady who checked me out told me to burn my clothes basically and I don't feel she was kidding. She was not a doctor or nurse but she was scared and I wanted to get out of that hospital as quick as possible. And if I could have avoided the hospital I would have. She also made sure to let me know that this is only the tip of the iceberg for how things will look in a week or two.
And I'm sure some of you want to know why I had to check in tonight and I will now share why...quite frankly its a little embarrassing but I was going for my walk tonight and I got a bug of some size that flew into my ear and kept buzzing deep inside my ear drum. We were at the middle part of a 3 mile walk and it took a while to get back with this thing buzzing and causing me to drop down once or twice from the pain inside my ear. It wasn't quite Khan but my ear was already leaking liquid wax from the bug burrowing around in there. I tried to dislodge it and I kept hoping it would fly back out but no luck. I tried to do the worst thing possible and use a Q-tip back at the house. The Doctor at the hospital found it quickly but whatever Plan A was involving a rather long and shiny piece of metal didn't work but it sure got that bug to start squirming around in my ear canal and I was starting to make a howling noise so we went to Plan B involving a tube of something squeezed into my ear and the doctor says "There it is" and he pulls out a black beetle and I said "I'll take that" so we decided to put it in a specimen jar for me to take home and look at for a while. It was a lot bigger than a little fly or whatever I thought it was.
If you can avoid it, stay away from the hospitals right now. And if you do go I would be very thankful if they even open the door for you. It felt like a war zone.
