This was not meant to be a series.
On Thursday, May 3rd I went to the ER again after developing an allergic reaction to the antibiotics I was on. The reaction started on Monday and Wednesday I found myself both very spotty and fatigued. The fatigue may have been unrelated or psychosomatic. Either way, I wanted to get a professional opinion on what I could or couldn’t do for this particular reaction.
I originally planned on visiting the ER before noon, but ended up not getting out of bed until after 11, so I was actually eating breakfast at lunch. I went after 1 p.m. and foolishly assumed it would be quieter during the week than on the weekend. I’m not sure what my logic was in thinking this, but I was horribly wrong.
There weren’t many people in the ER, which lulled me into a false sense of “This isn’t going to take long.” Here is my tale, written live blog-style thanks to the wonders of technology.
1:07 p.m. Here I am again in emergency, hooray. Today’s special is spots all over the body. I ordered the full meal.
1:20 p.m .Still waiting, lots more people coming in now. No one here has any obvious symptoms or injuries, which strikes me as a wee bit odd. Maybe someone will suddenly have blood start gushing from their eyeballs or something.
Actually, a kid about 8 looks like he hurt his arm. he’s holding it in that “I dun broke it” way, but looks super casual otherwise. If I broke my arm I’d at least look a bit distracted.
1:25 p.m. I’m in at Check-in 2, getting prepped for triage. Temperature and blood pressure taken again (the latter may be increasing with each trip to the ER), get another set of those impossible-to-remove bands on my wrist. They have not added the new antibiotic to the second band. Yet.
1:33 p.m. Moved to triage. Unlike the main ER area, this room is very crowded here and everyone looks sad or quietly angry.
Every time my name is called out, they say Stanley, like they’re my mom. To be fair, it’s what my ID says. It still feels a little odd.
1:43 p.m. A woman almost misses her call as she’s wearing earbuds and rocking out in a chair directly in front of the nurse calling her name. She’s about the only one here who doesn’t look unhappy. I don’t want to listen to music and lose my place. I’d probably be here another two hours.
I’m wearing shorts today. At least the weather is nice.
2:00 p.m. Time keeps on ticking…
Some weird period abduction movie is playing on the TV, with stabbing and blood. The twist is the abductor is a woman and the abductee is a man. Some vigilante woman with a bow comes to rescue the man, but her target, in true Mike Myers fashion, pulls the arrow out of her chest and tries stabbing vigilante woman with it. As one does in these situations. This movie doesn’t seem like maybe the best choice to be showing in a hospital. Okay, I remember seeing that it was on CBC, so I looked it up and it turned out to be an episode of Murdoch’s Mysteries, “a one-hour drama set in Toronto in the late 1890s and early 1900s during the age of invention.” Apparently the mystery in this episode is how you can’t disable someone with an arrow fired at near point-blank range.
Shortly after this ends, a show called The Goods starts. People laugh a lot. It’s some home improvement thing set in a studio with an audience of about 12 people. They all seem to much happier than those of us here in triage. Before the first makeover begins, a Code Blue is called for the lower entrance. Several staff go running by. I hear a vehicle backup sound. Code Blue means someone in need of immediate resuscitation. I’m probably a Code Mauve.
2:03 p.m. I’m wondering what if anything they can do or give me. If I had a super power right now I would totally go with body spot remover.
A kid is crying over in emergency. It’s faint, though, almost subliminal. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.
The young guy sitting across from me appears to have fallen asleep. Just as I finished writing this he sprang to life and took out his phone. His sleepy eyes now have the zombified glaze of the modern smartphone owner.
2:08 p.m. It dawns on me that this is triage and as such I may be the last one looked at. I gird myself for a long wait.
2:14 p.m. I notice my chart is gone from the chart repository. This seems like a promising sign.
2:20 pm The guy sitting next to me gets restless, gets up, raids a vending machine and is now pacing back and forth in front of me eating heavily salted snacks. It’s mildly annoying. He’s apparently not going to sit back down.
2:23 p.m. Running out of seats now. Munchies Man may be accidentally nice by refusing to sit.
Salty Snacks Guy gets his chart or whatever and is free to go–just in time, as he finished all his nuts.
2:27 p.m. I have been waiting in triage for about an hour now. I know my phone battery can hold out, but still….
2:29 p.m. A woman sits next to me and a nurse starts administering an IV to her, explaining the procedure. I don’t really want to be part of this. Fortunately at nearly the same time I finally get called in.
2:31 p.m. I’m in a small exam room by myself this time. The doctor leaves so I can put on a gown after I remove my shirt. This turns out to be unnecessary, except for some untold amusement value.
2:36 p.m. I sit on the exam bed and wait. I haven’t secured my gown very well and it keeps wanting to slip off my shoulder, like I’m trying to make myself alluring.
2:45 p.m. The doctor finally returns and has changed into a man. He introduces himself but I don’t quite catch the name. Dr. Mark Flibberman or something. He seems non-nonsense. He asks a few questions about the reaction, gets me to pull up the gown to show my spotty abdomen, makes me stick out my tongue, then says very firmly, “Never take that antibiotic again.” That seems like a good idea. He deems this a mild allergic reaction and recommends Benadryl and says Reactine is also good. It will take around 10 days to clear up (I’m on Day 7 as I write this and this seems plausible. It’s just now showing signs of fading). He doesn’t suggest I do anything else in particular, except to return if I see symptoms of a stronger reaction. These include fun things like:
- difficulty in swallowing or breathing
- skin peeling off
- ulcers in the mouth
None of these have occurred yet, but given how things have gone this year, I’m not placing bets until the spots have completely faded.
2:48 p.m. Unlike my previous visit, I leave empty-handed, save for the bracelets. I have to pick up something from an Amazon locker at a nearby TD branch and try to look inconspicuous, even though it’s totally obvious I’m wearing bracelets from the hospital. Not to mention the spots.
I have spent nearly two hours at the hospital. I probably could have looked up the same info in five minutes on WebMD.com. Oh well. At least the news was…not bad?
This concludes my second and hopefully last trip to the ER this year.
Bonus image. This is what my right leg looked like after a walk the same day. Vigorous activity was making the spots extremely vivid for a couple of days. It’s honestly kind of gross, so I’ve put it inside a spoiler:
