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I woke up around 9:30 Wed. morning and after a few minutes started feeling a terrible pain in my chest area.  I thought I was having a heart attack.  I managed to get to the kitchen and take an 81mg aspirin to try to avert this possible life threatening event.  I tried my best to relax and stay calm so as not to exacerbate whatever was going on in my body.  Yeah, right.  Did I really think I could remain calm during a heart attack?  Anyway, I waited to see if the pain would subside but finally had to admit that it was time to call 9-1-1.  I'm not really sure how long it took the ambulance to arrive, but when it did the paramedics immediately went into action, doing all the things they do to ensure that you stay alive.  They took my vitals, hooked me up to a heart monitor, asked about any medications and all the while talking to me and trying to reassure me that everything would be okay.  I'm sure they did other things that I was unaware of or don't remember.  God bless those people.  They even had to contend with my 3 dogs, one of them being an Akita.  However, I think my dogs sensed that these people were here to help me, not hurt me, so they allowed these strangers to herd them into the family room and close the gate to separate them from the main part of the house. 

So I arrive at the Florida Hospital on Saxon Blvd. in Orange City at approximately 10:30AM.  As we got there I started having pains again and was given nitro that was sprayed into my mouth.  I was put in one of the curtained off areas of the ER and was hooked up to all the monitors: heart, oxygen, blood pressure, etc.  They did blood tests, an ultrasound of my heart, and a chest x-ray.  The wonderful news is that I didn't have a heart attack.  Thank you, dear God.

I was told that the on-call physician wanted to keep me for 24 to 48 hours for tests.  Not a good thing for me because, like 47 million other Americans, I have no health insurance!  But as my son and my friends all pointed out, my health is more important than worrying about a hospital bill.  Of course, that's not taking into consideration the stress I'm going to be under when I see the bill

Okay, so now I've been in ER approximately 1 to 2 hours.  People are coming in and out of the curtain to do any number of things.  Then a man comes in wheeling a cart with a computer on top of it.  He introduces himself as David and proceeds to inform me that the cost of today's ER visit is $550.00, but if I pay right now I can get 44% off that price!  Huh?  What is this....a hospital version of Let's Make A Deal and David is the new Monty Hall?  I couldn't believe it. 

Fast track to approximately 3:00pm.  I had actually fallen asleep....not an easy thing to do in an ER.  When I woke up I immediately called for the nurse.  No, not with the call button, as I had not been given one.  I had to grab the curtain and pull it aside to get her attention.  I told her that I needed some orange juice right away because my sugar level had dropped drastically. After all,  I hadn't eaten all day.  When she came back....15 to 20 minutes later....she didn't have the orange juice.  She came back with a glucose monitor to check my sugar level!  She said 'you didn't tell us you were diabetic'.  I said 'I'm not, I'm hypoglycemic'.  She said 'well, you didn't tell us that and now you're eating so I can't test your sugar'.  I told her I had just now taken the first bite of what my friend Verna had brought me because I was starving.  She gave me a perturbed kind of look and walked away.  Now I must ask all of you a question:  if someone tells you that their sugar level has dropped, what is the first thing you would do?  Most people would immediately give you either a piece of candy or a glass of orange juice.  Not in this ER.  They give you grief because you didn't think of everything while you were in severe pain and thinking you're going to die.

Fast forward once again to somewhere between 8:00 & 8:30PM.  A new shift, a new nurse.  You may remember me mentioning that I wasn't given a call button in case I needed assistance when I first got there.  So I asked him about it and he said of course.  He brought it to the rail of the bed and hooked it up so I could find it when I needed it.  Thank you, sir.  About 9:30 I asked one of the nurses to unhook me from the monitors so I could use the restroom.  He did so and when I came back to the bed I waited a few minutes to see if anyone came around.  At 9:42 I pushed the call button.  I saw the light go on and then it went off a moment later.  I waited, but no one responded.  9:50....pushed call button again, saw light go on and off again.  Waited, no response.  10:12....pushed call button again, heard someone say 'be there in a minute, hon'.  Waited, no response.  It has now been 30 minutes and 3 requests and no one has come in to see what I need.  By this time I'm pretty fed up with the whole experience, not to mention the fact that I've now been there for 12 hours and I'M STILL IN THE ER.  

I put on my clothes, took all the heart monitor leads off, removed the oxygen monitor lead and the blood pressure cuff.  Mind you, none of these monitors were working because I couldn't get anyone to hook them back up after my 9:30 trip to the bathroom!  The only thing I couldn't, or actually wouldn't do was take the IV needle out.  (I wasn't being given anything intravenously, it was just the lead or whatever it's called)  So after I packed my bag I walked around to the other side of the curtain and asked for someone's help to remove it.  I was asked if something was wrong.  I said, yeah....I'm more stressed here than I would be at home, so I'm going home.  When they inquired as to what had me stressed I said that they hadn't even been monitoring me for the last hour, so what good was it for me to be there?  The nurse said 'yes, we have.  I put the blood pressure cuff on you myself  a couple hours ago'.  When I told him that I had used the restroom an hour earlier he said 'well, you should've come and told us when you got back'.  I said 'I pushed the call button three times and got no response!'  He didn't say much after that.  Just that I would have to sign a form saying I was leaving against medical advice.  So I walked out of there knowing precious little more than when I was wheeled in on a stretcher 12 hours before.

This is the kind of treatment, if you want to call it that, that people are receiving when they go to a hospital emergency room nowadays.  And I've spoken to several other people today who had little good to say about that same hospital, so it's not just my opinion.  It's a very sad state of affairs when you are put in a position where you are at the mercy of people who vowed to care for you, but you can't even get the simplest of needs met.  I pray to God that I never have to be in that position again.