Weird experience

[OakLeaf]

Spend a couple of hours in the ER and you'll overhear a lot of what they have to deal with ... I wonder the opposite, if people who seem articulate and reasonably sane get the attention and explanation we need when we're really too dazed to make any decisions at all. And of course the X-ray techs have to deal with probably a disproportionate number of people sent over from the ER.

I can't believe they let me out of there without a neck X-ray. It's dawned on me gradually how very, very close I came to breaking my neck. I declined a CT of the head because the tech said it was for my jaw and orbit, which quite obviously were not broken. Whether or not I might have had an undisplaced fracture of C1 or C2, OTOH, was not at all obvious.

[tulip]

I would think that people who are getting X-rays are scared, in pain, and perhaps dazed because of some injury. I would not assume that they are all stupid, uneducated, imbeciles.

But hey, that's just my experience. The first time, I was a child with a potentially life-threatening disease. I was uneducated, having only completed the first grade. The second time, I was a teenager (okay, so yeah, imbecile counts there) with a broken ankle. The third time I was an adult with a broken toe that hurt so much and I was a bit embarrassed about how I broke it (fell into a pool at a funeral--long story). The fourth time was actually my husband who had cut his hand and had lost so much blood and passed out in the waiting room and nearly died and I pitched a fit and barged into any room that had a whitecoat in it. The fifth time I arrived by helicopter and was not conscious. The sixth time I was nearly passed out with pain from slamming my hand in a car door and I fainted and heaved.

None of the times were just out of curiosity about why something hurt. I think that's a luxury because most people go to get X-rayed because they have to.

[limewave]

The last time I had an x-ray, I was told for the first time--10 minutes earlier--that I probably had ovarian cancer. I needed surgery to hopefully remove the tumors and a full hysterectomy--in 4 days!!! I would need to take at least 6 months or more off of work. I wouldn't be able to drive or walk up stairs during that time. And DH had just proposed like a day earlier. Not only was I facing my own mortality, I was worried about how this was going to affect DH. Would he still want to marry me when I was going to have this mess going on and I wouldn't ever be able to have kids?

I'll stop rambling now, it just brought up a lot of memories I hadn't thought about in a while.

All that to say that I was a blubbery mess. I think I needed the xray technician help me change and get me on the x-ray table.

[Biciclista]

I don't recollect any time having been on the xray table where I impressed anyone by knowing what body part I had that needed xrayed. Perhaps the xray tech was just so impressed with you that they let it flow through the entire interaction?

ps I had a dental technician tell me she loved working on my teeth because my CHEEKS were so thin they didn't get in the way!

[lph]

Oh lord. Not to belabour the point, but it reminded me - the only time I've gotten an x-ray anywhere except at the dentists was when my elbow was dislocated. I was a moaning, selfcentered hyperventilating mess, and could barely tell where I was, let alone make sense of what anybody was saying to me. I guess I have a pretty pathetic pain threshold.

(but when they pulled it back - boom, all better. Amazing, just amazing.)

[jessmarimba]

Ooh I did just remember (along the lines of being uncooperative with medical technicians) - when I was rolled in for my CT scan after my wreck, the lady asked me to move from my bed to the table without help. I looked at her like she was crazy (I had just come in duct-taped to a board with a back injury!) and she just glared right back. So I did it anyway. I think she was in too much of a hurry to get a second person to help transfer me.

[GLC1968]

I've had too many xrays to count (and yet I've never actually broken a bone!) but I do remember one situation in particular.

I had been in a car accident (a woman ran a stop sign and plowed right into me as I was moving at bout 35 mph). As a result, I was strapped to a back board with a neck brace and all the other precautions. I'd been waiting a long time because there was some other bad accident that night and the e-room was slammed. They rolled me into the x-ray room and I sat there for awhile, strapped to the gurney, alone. Eventually a couple of techs came in and I was begging them to let me up to pee. I had to go when I'd left the office 4 hours earlier but didn't want to have to go back in to the building and ride the elevator back up to my floor, so I figured I'd hold it. HUGE mistake.

Anyway, I was begging to go pee and when they clearly wouldn't comply, I started begging for a bed pan. I swear that they all thought I was insane but I was in so much pain (and not from the accident)!

I still ended up having to wait over an hour for a doctor to release me even after they were done. When I finally did get to pee, it was such a relief that I started crying while on the toilet.

[GLC1968]

Crankin - to your original point though, there is something to it. I saw my OB-Gyn a few months back and when he asked how I was doing and I said 'great' he looked at me kind of funny. I'd just lost 25 lbs, I was fit, I had no problems, I was on no birth control at all and I'd just had a clear mamogram. When he didn't respond right away, I asked "are you wondering why I'm even here?" and he kind of laughed and then said well no, it's just that hearing that everything is fine is so rare that it caught him off guard!

While the general public is getting unhealthier, I'm sure it's even more pronounced for the medical field where most people only go in when there is already something wrong, you know?