Part 1: http://teresakgoodwin.tumblr.com/post/6080151259/scrubs-part-1-saturday-night
Sunday at about 9am we checked into Alta Bates in Oakland. It was a surprisingly nice waiting room without any really sick or sad people which helped. They saw me pretty quickly in the triage room where they get your vitals and general info. The nurse at one point said to another nurse something about getting me back quickly and I realized that I was now important which isn’t what I was looking for. The nurse made it clear that if we were in labor we were not to come to this ER and she said something about going to the Alta Bates hospital and I hinted that at 21 weeks into my 40 week pregnancy I wasn’t there for labor. This was the first sign that we were at the wrong hospital.
We went back and were put in room K. Elliott wasn’t given a stool although he used the doctor’s chair when it wasn’t in use. My first nurse was Cindy this sweet woman who when she saw I was upset to be there told me it was ok and that it was normal to be upset, she made me feel better. I told her about my throwing up and my pain. She pushed on my side to confirm the exact spot that hurt and she asked if I knew that that is where my appendix is? I said that we had googled it and thought that might be the case. She said that many women have their appendix’s out during pregnancy, its common and nothing to worry about. Before she left she said she is just the nurse so the doctor will be the one to determine whats wrong but that she thought it was my appendix.
Then they did some tests, they put a thing for an IV into my arm just in case and drew blood from that. Cindy put in the IV thing and had a hard time, I bled all over the bedding and my arm looked a bit like a mess by the time she taped the thing down, little did I know that would be there for almost 2 days.
The doctor eventually made his way to my room which seemed like forever. I answered his questions none of which were really new and he said he would set up an ultrasound and complete a pelvic exam. When he left Elliott said to me I am sure you aren’t happy about the pelvic exam, and I wasn’t but I figured this was all part of being at the ER and I didn’t feel like I had much of a choice.
I think I had the pelvic exam first. Conveniently the bottom 1/3 of the ER bed folds down and has the foot saddle things. I asked the nurse what they were looking for and she said discharge or other unusual things. I think by this point we had heard again by the doctor in what I recall being presented in a snotty way that they handle the pregnant ladies at Alta Bates, I asked where that was and he said on Ashby in Berkeley. We didn’t purposely go to the wrong Alta Bates. I know Elliott felt bad about us being at the wrong hospital but really, there are two Alta Bates, that’s a little confusing. None the less they were going to help us all they could but I felt less and less comfortable with this doctor who I knew didn’t work with pregnant women often. This doctor also had a strange air about him. He came off as confident but overly so, confidence without the experience and knowledge to back it up or as if he was over compensating.
We then went for the ultrasound. Elliott and I both silently wondered if the radiologist would give up our surprise and say the sex of the baby, with a seemingly small oh your baby boy is doing just fine, but he didn’t. He looked higher than where I felt most of the pain although I didn’t say anything, I should have. At the end of the review he said he saw no gallstones and he would give the full report to the doctor.
We returned to room K and by now I would guess it was 1 or 2pm., there was a lot of waiting between everything. Eventually the doctor came back said the ultrasound was clean, I had no gallstones and he thought my pain was most likely round ligament pain common in pregnant women as their ligaments expand, and we could go home. I asked what explained the vomiting and he said the pain could trigger that. I asked if round ligament pain is usually bad enough that women check themselves into the ER and I can’t recall how he answered that. I then asked what about my appendix and he said I didn’t really have the abdominal symptoms of an appendicitis. He must have had a second thought though and he said let me look again. He pressed again to confirm where it hurt. He hit my heels and asked if it hurt. Then he pressed down on my appendix and released quickly and asked what hurt more, it clearly hurt more when he released and he said huh, let me talk to the radiologist again.
