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Tuesday, July 24, 2007

addendum to the Disney photos....

- If you want to see enlargements of the character photos you can see them here.

-The ER story...just for Brenda (so sorry for not sharing it earlier!).
On Tuesday, while we were at Magic Kingdom, I started not feeling well. I was mostly just light headed, which kind of made me feel sick to my stomach. I sat while everyone else rode a few rides, but still didn't feel better...so we all ended up going back to the hotel to rest and get out of the heat for a while. We decided to go back to MK later to see the parade/fireworks and I was feeling better...so I went along. I went to bed early hoping I would wake up feeling 100% better...but I woke up feeling the same. So, I stayed in the hotel room all day just resting and relaxing. I felt a little better that night, so I ventured back to MK with everyone to see the parade/fireworks that had been rained out the night before and again went to bed early. The plan was to wake up feeling better and go to Animal Kingdom (which I had missed) with Chris and the kids in the morning. But, I woke up still not feeling better. By noon I decided something had to be done- I couldn't go the rest of the trip feeling this way and missing out on everything. Chris called the front desk to see what our options were. Basically we could pay $250 for a physician to come to the room....or we could go to a 24 hour redi-med type clinic (which had a wait time of 2+ hours). Chris called the clinic and found out that they didn't treat dehydration (which is what we suspected I had)...so after a lot thinking, I finally decided I had to go to the ER. Chris and I got to the Celebration, Florida (Yes...that is really the name of the town...but trust me, it was no celebration!) hospital ER at 1:00 and I registered. Within 5 minutes they called my name...and we immediately were impressed with how speedy their service was. HA! HA! This was stop #1 of 10!! Seriously, it was the craziest system I've ever experienced.

stop #1 - meet with nurse to determine symptoms, take blood pressure, temperature, hook me up to an EKG, and have me pee in a cup
stop #2 - back to the waiting room
stop #3 - into the exam room to change into a lovely hospital gown and to wait for the doctor....who after asking lots of questions about my symptoms says "Dizziness is a tricky thing to diagnose" and decides that I need some blood work and an IV. I specifically asked him how long all this would take and he said "one hour". HA again!
stop #4 - into a small waiting area in a hallway to wait for bloodwork to be done. While we were waiting we witnessed a very upset patient yell and swear at a doctor the entire length of the hallway and listened to another patient yell in pain and then procede to throw up repeatedly. By this time I'm really wondering if I made the right decision.
stop #5 - Into a small room to have blood drawn, recieve anti-nausea medicine and begin the IV of fluids
stop #6 - Off to the "observation area" to wait while my IV runs and also wait for the blood work results to come back. WAY too much time spent in this area - I had lost all patience by this point and had also lost my sense of humor. Just ask Chris...he got to witness it
stop #7 - back to the exam room to wait for the doctor. He told me all my bloodwork results were normal and that he'd give me a prescription for anti-nausea medicine. I never did get an official diagnosis....although I know I was dehydrated!
stop #8 - back into the small waiting area in the hallway to wait some more
stop #9 - into yet another room to have the IV removed, receive my prescription, get dressed and finally be discharged.
stop #10 - to the desk to pay my deductible and finally be on my way (at 4:15pm!!)

Almost as much as excitement as one of the Disney theme parks, huh?? Too bad we couldn't have used a "fast pass"! Luckily the fluids and the medicine seemed to do the trick and I was able to enjoy the last couple days of our trip.

2 comments:

Brenda said...

thank goodness for mom and dad otherwise jacob and jenna would have spent an entire day at the er as well. er trips used to be entertaining for me, but unfortunately I have been the worst case scenario that last two times I went. Not so fun. The good news? When you are the worst case scenario, they rush to take care of you and you don't have to worry about steps 1-10! I'll bet that IV was awful since you were already dehydrated!

Anonymous said...

The last time I was at DW I remember some kids being sick, and I didn't have any. Makes for a very memorable vacation. Thanks for letting me see the pix. Jenna really enjoyed those characters, and I'm glad Jacob isn't too grown up yet to have fun with them, too. I'm out of the loop on some of those characters.