Adventures in the Hospital

I have been delinquent in writing blogs, and I hope to rectify that this week. I have been working a lot (as in, working a consulting job…more on that later), and my boyfriend has come to visit me from the US for the last two weeks (also more on that later). And other excuses. But I think I will first start with a little experience I had last night.

I don’t think my body likes Australia very much. I’ve gone to doctor offices quite a lot the last few months because of health snafus that have cropped up – things that have been peculiar and “first ever” problems for me – a bit too close together on the timeline.

My boyfriend left yesterday morning, and despite crying a lot I felt fine. By 7pm I started feeling the hints of something not quite right, and I went to the doctor’s office before they closed to get some medicine. By 9:30pm, I had gotten antibiotics but was feeling worse quickly, and was calling nurse hotlines to see if the swift progression was normal. By midnight I was in amazing pain and driven to the Emergency Room at the nearest public hospital by my roommate (Ecuadorean Monica) and admitted.

If you must know, it was all for a UTI. Normally, those are not too big of a deal…but I don’t know if I’ve ever had such an aggressive UTI before! I was peeing blood redder than I had ever seen before, hence the hospital adventure late on a Saturday night.

I have been to the hospital a bunch of times in recent years for others, but I had never gone to the hospital for myself as an adult. In fact, the last time I was in a hospital for myself was when I was dragged there as a teenager while on a mission trip in San Francisco because of a UTI (I swear I do not get them often!).

The public hospital I was in was like any other public hospital I have visited in the US – in design, décor, and system. I was put in a dressing down and plopped on a bed in a large room lined with semi-private bed areas for other fellow patients and scurrying medical staff. They strapped a wrist band on me with my basic information and a bar code. That was comforting for me, to know that in some ways modern medicine has made it easy to transfer ailments from one national hospital system to the next. The doctors were all pleasant, but obviously tired – it was, after all, a Saturday night in an urban area with a heavy drinking culture. I was honored to witness many sloppy drunks wheeled in while throwing strong and belligerent slurred words to the patient medical staff.

Because it was busy, and I was only peeing blood, I was not given priority, so I waited for 3 hours to be seen. My roommate thought I had been forgotten, but I could tell I probably was not forgotten, as a hospital bed is high-cost real estate in busy hospitals. Monica was patient and chatted with me about life and politics and healthcare for hours and hours, while I texted my boyfriend and friends about my well-being and status of the last red colors that had painfully come out of me. It was difficult to stay awake, waiting for someone to see me, and I did not feel like badgering the clearly weary staff. While I was in pain, I waited, thinking about the experience and the questions I wanted to ask.

Last month I had gotten first aid certification training and felt a minor urge to walk up to the busy nurses and declare my competencies in first aid, in hopes to maybe even be some help. They were busy, though.

The medication given to me hours before was delayed in working my complicated body. Halfway through my hospital visit, though, the medicine finally appeared to do some good, and the blood was getting less obvious and the pain started to dull a bit. I started going to the nurses about 2.5 hours in asking if I could leave now as the pain and blood had subsided a bit, but they refused. Because of the blood, they wanted to check me for kidney issues before I was released. I sighed and waddled back to the bed in my over-sized gown. For anyone in the hospital who saw my behind last night when I tried to negotiate the nurses, you’re welcome.

It is amusing to me that lately when Aussie doctors hear the medications I have taken in the past for similar things, they have consistently responded with, “Oh, that pill is a bit outdated…” I wonder sometimes if outdated medications, then, stay in the US because of the expensiveness of American healthcare, or because they’re the “tried and true” medicines. All I care about is that whatever they gave me yesterday, though I ended up in the hospital, have been working at last.

The hospital was a bit of a hike from where I live. There are a lot of hospitals here, and even one that is three minutes from my house. A lot of them, however, are private and are super expensive and not covered by my overseas health coverage. I think it is odd that there are not a lot of public hospitals in the area, especially since the city has been rapidly growing over the last few years. I asked Kylie why this was the case, and while she noted the hospitals outside of the city, she mentioned that there were some budget cuts that have made it harder for the current public hospitals to accommodate everyone. Having watched the zoo that was the hospital last night, I think that might be a good place to put money back in, guys. 

Though I know this is a challenge in a lot of the world, and I am mulling over what kind of solutions there could possibly be to make people peeing blood able to peacefully get out of the hospital before 3am.

Don’t worry, I am fine now. I’m sore and not 100%, but the kidneys are functioning alright and the antibiotics have been working. And now I know where the hospital is!