Okay, I know it hurts. I know it hurts like a knife or a gunshot wound, like industrial metalworking equipment is being applied to your flesh from the inside, like you're stuck between Enterprise and the ground and the transporter's malfunctioning. And I know that one thing people like to do when they're in pain is prove just how stoic they can be, just how much the pain isn't bothering them.
This is fine, as long as you're not in an emergency room. Play to the triage nurses; they're the ones who need to see exactly how much pain you're in. As my mother once told me, as we approached a crowded ER, "Scream." It was something I hadn't done as the sole result of excruciating pain for years, by that point in my adolescence.
Once you get a bed, you can go back to playing it cool for the doctors and the nurses. The worst thing that can happen is that when they ask you how much pain you're in and you tell them, they won't believe you. Who cares: docs have to treat the level of pain you report.
But triage nurses can look at your stoic self and say, "Eh, she don't look so bad, let's move her down the line some." So you're stuck outside watching Maury administer yet another paternity test while the sprained ankle who limped in twenty minutes after you gets cleared inside.
There's such a thing, my comrades-in-arms, as an overabundance of pride. Don't try to play it off. Don't play it up, either - if you're planning an ER visit, you probably don't have to. Just realize that if you feel like writhing in that tiny uncomfortable plastic chair, it's okay - nobody's going to think any less of you, and you'll probably get help faster.
Last tip for today; even though the triage nurses don't really like you to get up and ask them how long it's going to be, you should probably do it at least once every ninety minutes. ER waiting rooms get crowded; paperwork on each patient gets buried; time moves faster for them in their haste than it does for you in your pain. Let 'em know you're there.
When they ask you how bad the pain is, can't you just say "10" every time?
ReplyDeleteThe triage nurse is only going to ask that question once, when they take vitals. But people working for the triage desk (often volunteers shepherding patients around) keep their eyes on the patient waiting area.
ReplyDelete