ER Visits During Covid

I’ve had the [unfortunate] opportunity to visit emergency rooms in the area since Covid has made her presence to the world. It’s been interesting to see how the hospitals have adapted since last March to now, each experience proving different from the last.

My first experience with the ER was last April when my husband had a heart attack at the house. The ambulance came and got him situated for transport, and as I ran around getting my shoes to put on the paramedic stopped me.

“Ma’am, I’m so sorry but you aren’t going to be able to come with us.”

I was shocked and naturally I blurted out, “What do you mean I can’t come?!”

His face told me he was genuinely sorry as he responded, “Unfortunately we have a lot of Covid at the hospital, and because of that we have a policy that only the patient in need of care is allowed into the hospital.”

Of course I was taken aback, but wasn’t going to argue since I just wanted my husband to get to the hospital as quickly as he could. And then I waited. And waited. My best friend Leslie came over to sit with me, and for nine grueling hours I waited to hear any word about my husband. I assumed he was in open heart surgery (this isn’t his first or even second heart attack) since it was taking so long to hear anything. Would you believe the first person I heard from in regards to my husband was my husband himself. He called me to tell me he was ok, that he did in fact have surgery but just to place another stint. The relief that washed over me!

But I’m not gonna lie, I was a bit upset. Why hadn’t anyone contacted me to let me know? Surely within a 9 hour window somebody could have called me to tell me what was going on! What I came to realize is that the hospitals were so inundated with covid cases that it was making it increasingly difficult to treat people with other life threatening conditions. At the time it was hard to understand, but now (especially as we have seen what it’s been doing to our hospitals and its workers on the front line) I have more sympathy towards these workers than discontent.

“Ma’am, we are sorry, it’s just we have never dealt with this sort of thing before.”

The most honest and raw thing the doctor said to me, and they are right. We haven’t dealt with this sort of thing before. My heart hurt as I thought of those patients that were dying in the hospital, unable to have any family or friends close to say comfort them and say goodbye. My heart hurt for the hospital staff that had to step-in in place of those missing family members and the toll it must take on those hospital staff individuals. Just a heart breaking situation all around.

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My next visit came in November when my dear friend and business associate Brady was involved in a terrible accident while power washing a house I had listed, where he fell and got entangled in the ladder. He broke the bottom half of his leg clean in half and shattered his shoulder.

This go around, however, I was able to go back to the room with him. The hospital had changed policy and now one person was allowed to visit/be with the patient, but only that one person for the entirety of the day. So, once I went to visit no other visitor could come. Brady doesn’t have any family anywhere close, so I was able to see him every day multiple times to make sure he had company and was ok.

When he got to the hospital it took seven hours to get him back into surgery, which was by then 11PM. The hospital was so understaffed and doctors so overworked, that the wait times for surgeries like this were so much longer than they normally would be. But, I was able to be with him, and for that I was so thankful for.

The staff did the absolute best they could do to get him in, and did a wonderful job with taking care of Brady after the fact.

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My next visit was my own visit to the ER early this January. I had been feeling off, mostly just fatigued, but then my chest started hurting pretty bad. That, combined with shortness of breath, I truly believed I was having a heart attack. So I had my husband take me to one of the ERs in the area.

I was shocked when I first walked in and saw the room filled with people waiting to be seen. I sat there for 10 minutes as I looked around, and admittedly started to get nervous and scared being around so many people with covid running rampant. So I decided to leave and trying a different ER.

The second ER I went to took me right away to have an EKG done. Luckily it came back normal, but I was still in a lot of pain and felt like I was struggling to breath. I waited a few hours with my husband, and during this time I watched as people came in and out. The security guard came out at one point and asked that anyone who had a guest with them in the waiting room have their guest leave because the room was getting too full.

One woman in particular came in with tears streaming down her eyes, and I overheard she had just been discharged that day for kidney stones. Clearly she was still in bad shape and I started to feel guilty about being seen before her. I don’t know why I get like that, but since it had been a few hours and I felt like there were other people that needed to be seen than me I decided to leave (again, I know I know).

So I went home to try laying down sine my chest pain was a little less at this time. However, that was short lived and the pain came back full force and I headed back out with my husband to the ER (the first one we visited). Over the course of eleven hours my chest x-rays came back clear and blood work came back normal. A doctor did sit down with me, but he had to do so in an empty office because they had no rooms available to talk to patients because they were all full. I shared this room with another woman waiting to talk to the doctor as well. I was told it was anxiety and to see my PCP the next day.

I left the hospital at 3AM and had to take an Uber to get home because my husband was fast asleep (he wasn’t allowed to wait at the ER with me, so I had told him to just go home until I was done). If I was tired before, I was absolutely exhausted by then. Later that day I went to my PCP and they told me it was most likely anxiety and acid reflux.

The day after that my chest was still hurting and I still felt like I couldn’t breathe well. So, I called my PCP and told them I wanted a covid test. Sure enough within 24 hours I had a positive covid test and had to quarantine.

None of the doctors at all the different hospitals didn’t feel the need to test me because I didn’t have a fever. Just goes to show, you don’t need to have a fever to have Covid. Not everyone exhibits all of the symptoms.

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My most recent experience with the ER was last night, Feb. 1st. My dear friend Helen had received her Covid vaccine this past Saturday, and afterwards was experiencing chest pain. When she called to tell me I rushed over to her house just as the ambulance was pulling off. I followed the ambulance and was able to back with her into the hospital. The staff was wonderful and attentive, taking her straight back and constantly updating us on what was going on.

The doctor sat down and let us know it was a reaction to the vaccine. He said that 75% of the people who get the vaccine have some sort of reaction to it, and that those people are much more likely to have a worse reaction with the second round of the vaccine. I thought this was interesting because I hadn’t heard this until now.

Helen was discharged and is back home doing well.

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Overall, the experiences were sort of all over the place. But that’s fitting, considering Covid also just seems to be all over the place dismantling hospitals and flipping them on their heads. My heart goes out these hospital employees, obviously to those who are fighting on the front lines in the Covid units, but also the other staff that are so clearly affected by the amount of Covid cases presenting to the ER.

I’m fortunate that I had no serious complications while having Covid, but I know that’s not the case for many people around the world. My daughter told me recently about a high school classmate she had whose mother died recently from Covid. Her mother worked at a hospital in Texas, and was around the same age as me. I just couldn’t imagine.

Be thankful for the life you breathe each day, because there just aren’t any guarantees in this life.