is sixteen hours straight in an emergency room. That's where I was this past Labor Day. We arrived at around 5pm and we're there until about 9am the next morning. Not exactly a comfortable way to spend the night. But what's worse was that this was the forth time in 2 months that my wife and I had needed to make an emergency room trip and each and every time the wait just to be seen by an actual Doctor had been over 10-12 hours and then the wait to be diagnosed and treated averaged another 4-5 hours.
On July 4th, we'd had to go in to the Emergency Room because my wife contracted a case of Diverticulitis. which is a quite serious intestinal infection. We had to return a week or so later when she developed severe abdominal pain, which it turned out was an extreme case of constipation most likely caused by the pain meds she has to take just to be able to function day-to-day due to her two permanent back injuries - one a compression fracture at the T11 and the other a herniated L5-S1 disc, as well as significant arthritis in her spine and a slipped disc in her neck as a result of a car accident in 2010 - for which she is prescribed Vicodin.
The third visit was for urinari tract infection which is something that she had periodically had since she was a kid, and used to be able to alleviate with large doses of Cranberry Juice, but now requires anti-biotics. Except that my wife is allergic to most anti-biotics including anything in the Sulfa or Cilin families. And also unfortunately that on that particular visit the ER doctor prescribed her a anti-biotic that was not effective at fighting a UTI infection, so as a result - once again - we we're back on Labor Day in a desperate attempt to get the correct anti-biotic before her bladder infection worked it's way into her kidneys - which it had - and started to do some serious damage.
This is what life is like, when you don't have health insurance. This is what it's like without Obamacare, which will just start to accept enrollees as of today. Today, which is also the day first day in a Federal Government Shutdown intended to Defund and/or Delay Obamacare because apparently 16 to 22 Hour waits for treatment at Country UCLA Medical Center just Aren't Long Enough for Republicans.
Because let me tell you, before the Affordable Care Act Passed - the wait was Worse.
Over the past 10 years we've had to make over 20 or so Emergency Room Trips. This past New Year's Eve my wife called 9-11 due to severe chest pains and difficulty breathing which all concerned thought was a heart attack, including the paramedics. We still don't have a clear picture of exactly what that was other than her tests showing a extreme potassium deficiency.
Since it was New Year's, she didn't go to Harbor-UCLA as the Ambulance Entrance was closed, she went to another closer Hospital that night. But every other time we've had to got the H-UCLA prior to 2009 - the wait has been about 22 Hours Long.
So as it turns out, Labor Day, was slightly less shitty an evening than we were used to experiencing. But it was still pretty shitty - as my wife herself describes here from her facebook post on the evening:
Okay, so my trip to the ER Monday night, chapter 1 - once you check in and have your vitals taken, you wait (and wait...and wait...) and get sent, in my case, to MSE, which is essentially where they do any applicable lab work if needed for screening. Considering what I was there for, a UA was obvious. A bit later they took a blood sample. The gal asks "Do you know why we're taking the blood?" I managed to not make any snarky remarks about sparkly vampires waiting in the cafeteria and said "No...?" She said "Your urine test for pregnancy turned out positive, so..." /insert Snoopy blah-blah sounds. I said, "Not me." She nods. I said "Honey, I'm gonna be 60 in a couple years, let's not talk about how long it's been since I had sex, and..." She smiles and says "It did come up positive, so we're doing a blood test to be sure." I snapped something about if The Almighty was considering revisiting the whole Immaculate Conception thing, he sure as H-E-double-hockey-sticks wouldn't pick me. Cute African American clerk almost busts up laughing as he walks by. The two Japanese guys next to me are having a field day. "So, they tell you how many weeks?" "When the baby due?" All the "Honey, I'm NOT pregnant" in the world wasn't convincing them...Finally, the blood work comes back. Non-gravid. Not in the family way. Uterus unoccupied. "Told you." THIS was when I told the nurse, "You realize this is going to be the mother of all blog posts..." To be continued...
Chapter 2 of the ER saga - In addition to having a raging case of pyelonephritis (that's a kidney infection, for you civilians) I was also severely dehydrated. Part of that was probably owing to my struggling kidneys, but not wholly. It's been hot and humid in L.A. for the past few days. Our bedroom holds the heat like an oven in the summer and is uber-chilly in the winter. Now, in the winter I can pile on sweatshirts and blankets, but this time of year you can only get so nekkid, so I was sweating my brains out, as, being ill, I'd spent most of my time in the bedroom. This posed a problem when they were setting up my IV rig, since dehydration had narrowed my already fairly skinny veins. They couldn't find a vein big enough to support the needle. My elbows were unusable, plus the left was already sans a layer of skin due to my sensitivity to a tape used by the regular blood lab the previous week for my "six-month usuals". They gave my right hand a go and almost immediately I ended up with a huge blue lump (smaller but still bruised now). Go to the left then. Eureka! So I was re-hydrated via IV, plus given meds for my nausea/headache. The lab gal who got my UA result described the infection as "really bad", so we knew I'd be going back to the ER beds, not just collecting prescriptions and prancing home. Thus began a long wait for a f?!ked up reason which I shall go into next section...
Part Trois, or "Take it to the bridge, y'all!" - As you Angelenos know, ever since the trauma unit at King-Drew MC was shut down, there have been two, count 'em, two trauma centers for the greater L.A. area: County-USC, and my "home away from home", Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. They take, indeed, cannot refuse trauma cases in their area, be it a gunshot wound in Compton or a shark attack off Manhattan Beach. With my current penchant for ending up in hospital on holidays, I was joking with the main MSE nurse that "That's it - Halloween is cancelled! If you guys want to dress up, act a fool and beg for candy, have at it, but I'm calling it now - NOT HALLOWEEN!!" I think they appreciated my wiseassery lightening the mood in a room full of miserable patients, whiny/impatient people and conflicting reports from "the back", aka the ER bed area. Keep in mind that H-UCLA is so overcrowded that the beds are reserved for the most severe cases. When I was in with diverticulitis two months ago, my bed was one of a host of gurneys in the hallway. The less critical cases got to sit in chairs in the ER area. For hours. Anyway, I was "next on the list" to go back for a bed for hours...hours...listening to the Japanese, Spanish and Tagalog spoken around me...hearing the guy cleaning the hallway with some unholy offspring of a Zamboni machine and a Segway...hearing the fire alarm go off four times ("Code Reds" all...) The nurses checked the computerized chart of the bed area for discharges or admissions (i.e. available beds), but I was to be "next" for a long time. As it turned out, that night had seen a huge "gang initiation" event with wave after wave of trauma cases - mostly GSW's - flooding in. Obviously, someone with a critical wound needs that bed worse than I do, as I told the nurses, I'd hung in through two weeks of this illness, I could cope with a few hours. Despite the whining from some (far less injured/ill) patients, the staff were not the bad guys. My wrath was reserved for those who took up arms against the citizenry of Los Angeles and created all these trauma cases to begin with. I managed a quick and silent prayer for the wounded and of thanks for having such attentive people, patient with even the most insufferable intruders, and checking for me despite the fact I never once pressed them for a time definite as to my getting a bed.
We've had one ER visit a few years back where we sat there next to a worker from Dodger Stadium. He was one of the Vendors for either Hot Dogs or Peanuts and he'd
Fallen Down the Stairs at the Stadium severly injuring his knee. Technically he's not an employee of the stadium or of the MLB, he's an "Independent Contractor" -- as am I most of the time - so he doesn't get Health Insurance. As result, like us, he had to wait -- for about 20 hours if I recall correctly -- moaning in pain from his injury the entire time and worried that he needed to
leave and get back to work in order to feed his family.
Yet another time one of the other persons in the ER had cut off part of his finger and even though he was bleeding profusely - He. Had. To. Wait. They kept telling him, in broken Spanish, to put pressure on the wound, but that caused him excruciating pain and he couldn't bring himself to do it. Others tried to help and do it form him as he moaned, and the triage nurses wouldn't, or couldn't, prescribe him any pain medication until he was a seen by an actual Doctor. So he waited, and bled... all over the floor. For Hours.
This. Is. What. It's. Like.
In the country we are so often told is the "Greatest Nation" in the world, we let people pile up and suffer like this because they have temerity to need medical care and be among the working poor at the same time.
The Affordable Care Act is an Imperfect Attempt to change all this. To take away some of this type of suffering. To make it so that the process of seeing an ER Doctor isn't your first, second and third option. If I didn't know what absolute HELL I'd have to go through to be seen by a doctor -- I might not have gone for the last 12 years without seeing one since I last had Health Care right after 9-11 when the dot com i was working for lost one of his primary client accounts with a Convention Scheduled for the WTC Marriot which TOWER 2 LANDED ON TOP OF.
I have a lump on my right thigh about the size of five quarters which has been there for about 5 years or so - I don't exactly recall how long. It doesn't hurt unless I ram it into a wall, It's not discolored. It's fine. I'm not losing a day and a half of work, a night's sleep for a 15-20 Hour ER wait over it - which at my age will take me about 3 more days to recover from. I'll do it for my wife because she has several serious health issues and it's not worth the risk, but not for this little lump. I'll live with it. I'm not going to the ER for it. Fuck that Place.
I wouldn't even go to the ER after I got flipped over onto the back of my neck while playing Basketball a few years back and temporarily lost all motor function in my limbs, landing on the pavement like a rag-doll. Feeling and the ability to move anything below my neck came back after a few seconds - but it was a pretty frightening few seconds. I'm pretty sure I bruise a rib, and I had the chest pain to back that up for the next few weeks. Even though I could move, I really - seriously - didn't want to, not with that pain. Yet I didn't go to the ER for that, so I'm not going for this lump. Nope. Fuck that. I can live with the lump. Nor am I going to the ER to have this sinus infection which gives me a near constant headache - it feels kind like having water go up your nose into your sinus cavity whenever I lean forward too far -- since about 2010. I can still get Ibuprofen at the .99 cent store, that takes care of it.
These are the kinds of choices and decisions people without heathcare have to make. Is this problem serious enough to risk losing a day or two of your life and all the income that come with it? More than a few times, when taking my wife to the ER - it's been an agonizing decision. Well, maybe we can wait until the weekend when I'm off work, and hopefully the infection won't be Too Bad by then.
We delayed like that the first time my wife contracted Diverticulitis. We didn't know what was going on, but we choose to wait until we knew we could stay in that mother-fucking room for 20+ hours straight. She was lucky to survive. And we once tried to avoid the ER by going to a local clinic for one of her UTI infections, which just like this time turned into a kidney infection because that clinic gave her the wrong anti-biotic back then and later we still had to go back the H-UCLA ER (19 Hour wait or so) to get the right one a week or so later. We've tried not to make that mistake again, but sometimes you don't have good choices.
This is how Republicans want it to be. This is how they Like it. If you can't afford the perks of the "Good Life", well you must have done something not to deserve them. Nobody Rides for Free. It's a Dog-Eat-Dog World. Tough. Walk-it-Off!
Yeah, that's how they are until it's their turn. That's how they are until they have to deal with the consequences of their own Raging Insouciance.
Today, as of Today, which is exactly one week before my 50th Birthday... we get to see again just how much the Republican Party - the Party the just LURVES America - apparently doesn't give Good Flying GOD DAMN about the American People.
They're going to put 800,000 people out of work and mess up their rent, their house notes, their credit cards and credit ratings, just to make sure that 30 Million people don't get Health Care.
Just to Make Sure they can't get a regular Doctor with a PRIVATE Insurance company who they can call up and schedule a visit - THEY HAVE TO GO TO THE FUCKING EMERGENCY ROOM!. And wait... and wait...
They say they have to do it to save Small Business that will be "crushed" by Obamacare. They never seem to remember or mention the fact that small businesses have already been getting a 35% tax credit for their Health Care expenses, and that as of this year, that credits Goes Up to 50%. Which means when they say they want to "Defund Obamacare", besides cutting the funding for the Exchanges, and the Navigators and Subsidies for people like myself which would finally enable me to purchase insurance at a decent rate, they're also Cutting the Tax Credit to Small Businesses. Opps.
And I see why they have to do this. They literally HAVE TO. Because the Republican Party has become the Anti-Government Party. Unless you carry a gun, or wear a uniform - sometimes - if your paycheck comes from "The Government" - to them, you're not someone trying to protect the American people from toxic waste, or trying to keep our aircraft from running into each other in the air, or make sure nobody has a BOMB in their shoe, or make sure their water we drink or the air we breath or the food we eat isn't full of POISON. You're not a ER doctor struggling to get from one Gun Shot Victim to the Next. No, no.. you're not a benefit to the American people if you're an Employee of -- the American People.
You're the Enemy.
You have to be Destroyed.
Because if the GOP fails to perpetuate the Idea that "Government IS the Problem - Government Is a Cancer that will spread unchecked until you RIP IT OUT at the roots." If they fail to shut the government down and let people see that "We Don't NEED all that Big Giant Fluffy Nanny-State Goverment Feeding us Obamacare Down our Throats". They have to shut it down. That's always been the goal of the Tea Party. Break it. Destroy It.
But this isn't even really about Obamacare. Not really.
It's about the probably of people realizing that the taxes we pay are actually providing us all back a benefit not just in the present - but in investments in our future and in our children's future. If people think that, they'll want more of it. They'll want better Government and less profitization of public resources. If the American people start to think that way, if they start to realize that Multi-National Corporations and For Profit Limited Liability Vehicles are NOT EXACTLY looking out for their best interest, that they exist take any fair and unfair advantage they can, that left unchecked and unfettered they will run roughshod over their employees, their customers and even their competitors if they get the chance - NO Holds Barred - like a pack of ravenous sharks in a feeding frenzy they will gorge themselves on our Treasury and Natural Resources until there is Nothing Left but Scorched Earth - if people realize this - the GOP is DONE. Toast. Finito. Baked. Fried. OVER. They got nothing left IMO. Zip. Nada.
This is their last desperate gasp. The Death Rattle. They aren't doing this for YOU, or for ME, they're doing it to Save Their Own Asses.
And I don't think it's gonna work. I'm gonna sit here with my leg-lump and get ready for my next interview later today - this time with a Health Care Company believe it or not - and have some popcorn. Obama's not gonna blink, the GOP is gonna Cave like a House a Wet Cards. This is gonna be good.
Vyan