MuirWannabe
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2009
- Messages
- 2,115
So, doing a backyard project and managed to cut my thumb pretty deep with a hacksaw. Seemingly the older I get the more lessons I still need to learn. Came back in house to tell DW and we immediately headed out to the local urgent care place. You know, the neighborhood doc in a box type place, located between the drive thru bank, the nail salon, and the donut store.
Six stitches in my thumb went fine. Except during the procedure I 'vagaled'. That's apparently medical slang for almost passing out at the sight of blood or needles. I've always considered myself a reasonably tough guy and never had anything like that happen before. But believe me it was scary and horrible feeling.
It sure got the doctor and staff at the urgent care excited. They hooked me up to an EKG among other things. A few minutes later after I'd semi recovered from my vaso vagal experience the doc comes in and tells me the EKG she read shows my heart is skipping every other beat. Says it's very serious and they've already called an ambulance and I'm needing to go to the hospital. Mind you I'm feeling okay at this point. And I'm thinking about the sequence of events that had so quickly led from a finger cut to now an ambulance ride and hospital visit.
The ambulance arrives and they crate me off. DW follows in the car bewildered and a little scared. During the ambulance ride they hook me up to another EKG and almost immediately tell me they don't see anything wrong. The young lady ambulance tech (very impressive, competent, and cute but that's off topic) then looks at the printout from the urgent care EKG. Again, very quickly she shakes her head and says one of the leads on the EKG had a bad voltage indicator and they weren't reading it right.
By this time I'm at the ER. They wheel me in and the hospital does a third EKG on me. Again all is fine. After a couple hours observation they let me go. Btw, don't get hungry in an ER they won't feed you.
So, my question is about these urgent care places. Have you ever been? Impressions? Are they safe? Right now I'm thinking they might be okay for very minor matters. But I wouldn't trust them for almost anything remotely serious. Then again, my finger cut still triggered a series of events that got out of control.
Muir
Six stitches in my thumb went fine. Except during the procedure I 'vagaled'. That's apparently medical slang for almost passing out at the sight of blood or needles. I've always considered myself a reasonably tough guy and never had anything like that happen before. But believe me it was scary and horrible feeling.
It sure got the doctor and staff at the urgent care excited. They hooked me up to an EKG among other things. A few minutes later after I'd semi recovered from my vaso vagal experience the doc comes in and tells me the EKG she read shows my heart is skipping every other beat. Says it's very serious and they've already called an ambulance and I'm needing to go to the hospital. Mind you I'm feeling okay at this point. And I'm thinking about the sequence of events that had so quickly led from a finger cut to now an ambulance ride and hospital visit.
The ambulance arrives and they crate me off. DW follows in the car bewildered and a little scared. During the ambulance ride they hook me up to another EKG and almost immediately tell me they don't see anything wrong. The young lady ambulance tech (very impressive, competent, and cute but that's off topic) then looks at the printout from the urgent care EKG. Again, very quickly she shakes her head and says one of the leads on the EKG had a bad voltage indicator and they weren't reading it right.
By this time I'm at the ER. They wheel me in and the hospital does a third EKG on me. Again all is fine. After a couple hours observation they let me go. Btw, don't get hungry in an ER they won't feed you.
So, my question is about these urgent care places. Have you ever been? Impressions? Are they safe? Right now I'm thinking they might be okay for very minor matters. But I wouldn't trust them for almost anything remotely serious. Then again, my finger cut still triggered a series of events that got out of control.
Muir