Difficult Seasons

Emergency Room

I don’t like trips to the ER.

Don’t get me wrong, I love what Emergency Rooms do.  And between my now adult kids and my dad, I’ve gotten to see them do their thing too many times.

I was there again today with our daughter, as she was struggling with pain from passing a kidney stone.  She received excellent and personalized care, as has thankfully always been our experience.

What I don’t like is that someone I love needs to be in an ER.

For our children, both as kids and adults, there have been the visits due to sports injuries, the most serious a couple of concussions.  Then there have been so many visits due to kidney stones and gall bladder attacks and even pancreatitis that I’ve now lost count.

With my dad, one was for side effects of prescription medication.  And we’ve made a couple more for heart related issues.

Even though I’ve had lots of experience, even though we’re on a first name basis with some folks at our favorite ER, ER visits are still stressful.  I don’t like watching family members in severe pain.  I don’t like it when they’re throwing up in trash cans, nauseated by the pain.  I don’t like it when they’re scared.  I don’t like it when I’m worried about them.

I do like it when things get resolved though, when we get to go home.

Photo Credit: Courtesy Flickr member Zoomar

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 12th, 2009 at 2:42 am and is filed under Caregiving. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.