Short report:
Last Sunday night I got hit by chills and fever again. They were mostly over by the end of Monday, but I was in no shape to go anywhere, even though I could see another leg infection starting. It was late afternoon Tuesday by the time I could get out, and the hospital's ER was recovering from a wave of admissions. At about 22:40 antibiotics were prescribed, IV. Unfortunately, I'm a very hard vein stick. They got the two sets of culture bottles and four other vials, but setting an IV required finding a vein angel on duty.
That took until almost 01:30. By 03:00 the exhausted staff was getting the place back in order--but I hadn't gotten my antibiotics. I raised a gentle fuss (the staff had worked over 8 hours without a break) and got the first bag around 03:40--five hours after I got into the ED proper. And my leg was five hours worse. The change was very visible.
I spent my first day waiting for a bed in an overflow room down the hall from Emergency, sharing a couple of hall bathrooms with Pediatric Emergency.
The first time I went to use one I walked in on a woman with her kid. She hadn't locked the door. Then I found the WC's misinstalled, so that my private parts dangled in the water when I used them. They were both the same way. I have to wonder if men ever use those bathrooms--or are meant to.
In that busy room I didn't get much sleep. I got a bed upstairs just before dinner. Since then I've been sharing a room with a very noisy fellow (awake, asleep, and in between) and so got no sleep Wednesday night. I've mostly caught up now. (Maybe, just maybe, the fellow's fever just broke for good.)
I put my chances of discharge tomorrow at a bit over 50%. I'm supposed to get a quick check by a vascular surgeon, and that could keep me in too, until it's too late to get the discharge paperwork through. (Nobody wants to cause a delay but nobody knows what's waiting on them. Management is denied the right incentives. If people start lawyering up and refusing to pay for the extra day, management might get the right incentives. I don't believe our current system with insurance gives that right incentive.)
I have a promise from the Infectious Diseases specialist of three extra days on top of the oral antibiotic they'll discharge me with, to be set aside and stockpiled so I have something to take right away when chills and fever strike again. We don't expect it to completely block an infection, but to give me time to get in so that a quick round of IV treatment will cover it.
