Let me take you back to a really fun night I had while I was just starting out my second semester of the PSW program. It was the worst night I had throughout that entire course, but my interaction with one RN made it almost worth while.
At about 2130 I started having a really irritating cramp in my right side. I figured I would just get some rest and be fine in time for class in the morning. By 2200 the cramp had gotten so bad I felt like I was going to throw up, pass out, or both. Nothing was making the pain any better, it just kept getting worse. It felt like someone had shoved their fist into my side and was knotting up my insides into a tight little ball. I kept trying to ignore it, but once I had a hard time catching my breath because of the pain I decided it was time to go to the ER.
The ride to the hospital and trip through triage was a blur. I have no idea how long I sat in the waiting room and I don't remember changing into a gown. I laid on the bed in an exam room split into five exam rooms with curtains and waited for the doctor. The patient next to me had a herd of family with them that were complaining loudly about some family drama.
The RN comes in and takes a quick history. I chock out a pain scale of 12/10. She tells me I don't understand. I correct her. Yes, I do understand that a pain scale is usually 10/10 maximum. I have asked other people that exact same question more times than I can count. This is not the worst pain I have ever felt, it is beyond that. I cannot breathe because of the pain and if you don't back up you're going to get puked on. She leaves in a huff.
About 10 minutes after she leaves, I throw up in the garbage can. Fun fact: macaroni and cheese looks almost the same coming up as it does going down, but the smell is so unbelievably horrific it may require an exorcism to get rid of. Boyfriend scuttles off to the nursing station to inform the RN of this and after I throw up a few more times she shows up with a k basin (about 20 minutes later). If I hadn't been in so much pain I would have laughed at the look on her face when she peaked in the garbage can. She rushes out (I assume because of the smell, since she was starting to look a little green), then comes back about 15 minutes later. She throws open the curtains and informs me, quite loudly:
"Look, I get that you're *wiggles fingers in the air* in pain or something, but you're being too loud. You need to quiet down, you're being disruptive."
I was completely stunned. The loud, obnoxious blabbering she was hearing was the family of the patient next to me. I am an extremely quiet person (think the low-talker episode of Seinfeld). The only conversations I had during my time in the ER were brief and whispered. I would suck in a deep breath every now and then to suppress the urge to scream, and that was as loud as I got. I start trying to sputter out a response but all I come up with is "Uhhhhhh". She cuts me off by handing me a jar and saying she wants a urine sample.
In order to get to the bathroom, I have to hobble across the exam room. I can no longer stand up straight anymore. I have officially become a mutilated capital T. The boyfriend is worried that I will faint on the way to the bathroom since according to him I am now white as a ghost, so he helps me into the bathroom. He hesitates as the door.
"...I know you're not going to like this, but you're not going in alone. I don't want you passing out on the john."
He accompanies me into the bathroom and turns his back as I attempt to produce a specimen.
At this point it feels like my bladder is about to burst, but nothing is coming out. I start straining harder and HOLY MOTHER OF CRAP I'M PEEING GLASS!
I finish up and hand him the specimen to run off to the nurse. My urine sample consists almost exclusively of blood and 3 good sized stones.
After helping me back to the bed, he rushes off to the nurses station. As I'm laying there, I suddenly feel quite a deal better. The pain isn't completely gone but I can almost straighten out now and no longer have the urge to power puke all over the room.
Within moments of him handing off the specimen, nurse bitchface is back at my bedside. She waves the urine sample at me.
"What's this?!"
"Umm.....the urine sample you asked for."
She rolls her eyes.
"Oh so you're on your period then."
"No, actually, I'm not." (you sure seem like you could use some midol though).
"So....you're...not......well then you just finished it."
"No I did not."
".... ...then........you...you're about to start soon then, right?"
"Nope."
"Oh..."
"I think I saw 3 stones or something floating around in there too."
"Uh....uh huh......"
I hear her muttering something in a bit of a nervous panic to a man in the hallway. Then the tallest friggin doctor I have ever seen walks in (he really didn't need to open the curtain, he could see over it. It was a little startling). He was absolutely fantastic. Very thorough, patient, and very kind. Thanks to the panic the sample seemed to set off in the nurse, the doctor took my pain complaint very seriously and set me up with an order for an ultrasound (turns out I still had more of the little buggers floating around) and a prescription for dilaudid.
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