Not the TV show. I used to quite enjoy the television show. Although the vibe of the TV show is quite similar to the vibe of a real emergency room. There aren’t enough beds, patients are freaking out because they feel so sick while they wait an hour for actual doctor attention.
I took a trip to Emergency (or casualty as the people in my lab seem to call it) this week. It wasn’t really an emergency but they told me to go down there. While making my lunch I managed to drop my noodles in water all over myself, fresh out of the microwave it was pretty freakin’ hot! It was such a shock I screamed and then I cried because it hurt a lot but I couldn’t do anything about it. I stepped over to the sink and ran cold water over my hand and wet some paper towel for the parts under my t-shirt that were burning. It was extremely unpleasant. Thankfully Siew came into the lunch room quite soon after it happened and she cleaned up my mess while I cried and continued to apply cold water to the parts of me with hot water on them. Mel walked me down to casualty, I had a drenched towel around my hand and I waited in the waiting room for an hour watching Days of Our Lives. Then the triage nurse saw me. He told me to wait again so I waited two hours, watching the Young and the Restless and Family Feud while the pain in my hand grew worse. Soon after some horrible children’s show started I got seen by an intern who said that it doesn’t loo that bad, no blistering or broken skin, I could go and just keep on with cold compression and panadol if I needed it. A nurse said it was sort of like sunburn and could use Aloe Vera gel. So I left, without any of those things actually with me that could make me feel better.
I made myself an ice pack with some ice from work and a spare snap-lock bag. That made the ride home bearable, although it was quite nasty towards the end when it had all melted and the water was starting to warm up.
My hand is much better now. The good part of the whole thing is that I still get paid! I wrote on my time sheet that I only worked 10:30am-1pm but my boss said that it was an accident, couldn’t be helped, and I should write the time I left the hospital. 🙂
yikes. glad you’re ok. getting burned isn’t too good and the worse thing is that the burning feeling lingers long after too. i think all ERs are like that right? i.e. they only rush if you are terminal. kind of defeats the point of being an ER but I guess they have to set some kind of priority. hmmm.
nice of your boss to do that!