This year, Black Friday was the blackest of them all…read more
I had to rush my wife to the emergency room in the middle of the night, as she had begun experiencing severe flu symptoms. Coupled with her existing Type 1, the combination of the two swiftly morphed into diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), a condition that can rapidly escalate into coma...or death.
Despite arriving at around 3am, the emergency room lobby was filled with at least two dozen souls suffering from other maladies. Once we were able to check in, she was seen by a triage nurse within 15 minutes, who ran labs and diagnostics; she was returned to the lobby to suffer for another 30-45 minutes before a room was found for her. We'd overheard from the nursing staff that the wait for rooms could be as long as 8 hours, but apparently someone behind the scenes fast-tracked her, realizing the severity of her condition.
Unfortunately, once she was taken in to the ER, she languished for nearly another hour while the painfully aloof (and criminally understaffed) night nurse waffled about, with nothing to do, until the lab results could be fully processed, and a doctor could be found. This was interminable, as my wife desperately needed pain medication, and hydration - neither of which were provided, despite multiple requests. Also, there was no sense of urgency or even quality patient care from the nurse (Emily? It was a short "E" name), who seemed frustrated at being "overwhelmed" (despite sitting at an adjacent desk 15' away for 30 minutes, while my wife's pulse monitor, which had fallen off her finger, blared at her the entire time).
Eventually, a doctor did arrive, assessed the situation, and got her medicated, hooked up to fluids, and started the healing process. It was only then that we started to learn that what we'd assumed was just a nasty flu was something far worse. After a few hours, a shift rotation (Adam, the dayshift nurse, was conversely awesome), and several more bags of fluids and medications (I saw at least 4 separate drip bags going simultaneously, at one point), my wife was released from the ER and moved upstairs to an ICU bed, where she would remain for another 16 hours or so, hooked up to machines pumping her full of electrolytes and chemicals to get her system back into normal operation. She would eventually be moved out of the ICU to "regular" recovery room, for another 24 hours, before being released, nearly three full days after being admitted.
Once she was through the nightmare of the first four or five hours in the ER, our experience with SW Washington marginally improved, from cold and dangerously understaffed, to clinical and still-understaffed, but not as bad. It's obvious that there is a massive healthcare provider shortage throughout all the wards and departments here, as there was never more than a skeleton crew of nurses anywhere, around the clock, and call times to summon one to my wife's bedside took an average of 20-30 minutes; wanting to speak to the doctor on-shift (there was only one) usually took at least 3 hours, if they could be located at all.
They held my wife for an extended period out of an abundance of caution, as she had mostly physically recovered by the end of the first day, but the levels of certain chemicals in her system, such as potassium and magnesium, were lower than average. They kept her bedridden and attached to drip bags for the entirety, in order to prop them back up, although we never saw much progress. Eventually they were forced to release her, as she was "close enough", and they needed the beds. She's home now, taking it easy, and will probably be fine, but...man, that was a scary weekend.
I rushed my wife to SW Washington out of convenience, as it was arguably the closest hospital to our house in a rush, and I'd had a good experience with them before, during a personal emergency (I was in and out in 3 hours). However, should a similar scenario every rise up again, if a few additional minutes can be spared, I'll be taking her back to OHSU instead, for several reasons: more beds, better staffing (both in numbers and quality of patient care) and, most important of all (if you ask my wife): *FAR* better food. Seriously, every joke or meme you've heard made about hospital food being bland or terrible is true here: it's atrocious!
