My sister-in-law is staying with us for a few days because she is pregnant and my brother had to fly to Salt Lake on a business trip. She is from China and still feels a little uncomfortable by herself. Well, I was reading a book for one of my classes when she told me she had a lot of bleeding. At first I didn't understand her. But then it occurred to me she was talking about the baby. She seemed to think this was normal. I personally have never seen a pregnant woman bleeding as much as she was. I told her to get in the car and I was going to take her to the hospital. She has a two year old little boy who is super busy, so by the time we got him loaded up and we were on our way, it was getting late.
We finally made it to the hospital. Considering we live forty minutes away, I thought we made pretty good time. We met up with my step-mom (who is a nurse) at the ER. We waited for almost a half hour for someone to even show up at the check-in counter. Then they made her fill out a ton of paperwork (in which she did not understand because she can't really read/understand a lot of English). She finally got seen almost an hour after we got there. The nurse checked her out and said she had a bad tear in her uterus. That is NOT a good thing. She bled a lot and the doctors and nurses at the ER didn't seem to be all that bothered by this. Xuying, my sister-in-law, was super scared. The worst part of the evening was seeing her suffer. My step mom and I took turns watching the crazy, wild, hyper two year old boy. He was running around the hospital screaming at the top of his lungs. You would think they would have tried their best to get her seen and out of there just to get rid of the screaming kid. But they took their time.
Now I have only been to the ER a couple of times in my life. Both times I was there prior we got immediate care. The nurses took care of the patient as soon as he or walked in the door. Now they weren't really all that busy. I think there was only three other patients besides us.
They tested her hormone levels and got an ultrasound on the baby. Thank God the baby was still alive. The heartbeat was normal and the baby seemed to be healthy. But she was still loosing a lot of blood. The doctors said she had a miscarriage scare and that she at risk to lose the baby. We were all scared and very tired.
While my step mom and Xuying were talking with the doctor, my job was to take care of the kid. He seemed to have an endless supply of energy. I think we rad around that hospital fifteen times. The bad thing about watching him was I have blood sugar problems and we had not eaten dinner. My sugar was dropping fast and we couldn't get in to see my step mom for her to take a turn watching him. While his energy level seemed to have a bottomless pit, my energy level was failing fast.
We were there for almost FIVE HOURS! They forgot she was there, waiting for the results. That entire time she waited, she thought she lost her baby. It was terrible to see her in so much pain. We finally had to track down the doctor and ask what was going on. The doctor thought someone else had already talked to us and that we were gone. I almost switched my major right then and there. I wanted to become a nurse, because I was so upset with the lack of nurturing they did. I am telling you, the care she got was terrible! Even my step mom who is a nurse said she was super disappointed in the care she got. We waited for several hours to hear the results and no one bothered to come in. Now I could understand if they were busy. But by the time we left, the only other patient in there was asleep.
My brother was finally notified about our not-so-fun adventure and was really worried about his wife. He is hundreds of miles away and won't be back till friday. The hardest part is seeing her upset. Their son knew something is wrong and wanted his mom to hold him. She cannot of course because she cannot lift anything and has to be pretty much on bed rest. She is still bleeding a lot and feels really sick. I just pray the baby and Xuying are okay.
Tonight taught me many things. 1.) I do not think I ever want to have kids. He was completely crazy and a lot of work. 2.) Always carry something to eat at all times. 3.) There is definitely something wrong with our healthcare system. When the troubled patient has to wait a half hour to be seen because she has to fill out billing information first, we need to change. 4.) Most importantly I realized there is nothing more important than family. This week is super busy for me with school and I had a lot of homework and studying to do tonight. But when the time came, the last thing on my mind was homework. I have a quiz tomorrow and I am not even close to being prepared for it. I know I will not be happy with my score, but I will not regret my decision to take care family first.
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