I will tell you as quickly as possible about my latest experience with a fall in my suite.
They say most seniors’ falls are usually in their own homes. This last one was from my computer chair with five castors and as I tried to roll back on it, the castors hit my thick area rug and the chair stopped abruptly and threw me out, resulting in my head hitting a glass-topped table.
My friend who was there at the time said I bounced on the floor and my back seemed to hit the back of the chair on the way down. He witnessed the fall but could do nothing about it. He said it was like slow-motion but it happened so quickly.
He quickly called the emergency people where we live and they in turn called 911 and they came with an ambulance. The medics put a neck brace on me and then strapped me to a wooden back-board.
It was hell. I was in a lot of pain as well you can imagine, but they could not give me anything for it orally or by injection with the rheumatoid arthritis I have.
They took me at 4:30 p.m. and they did all kinds of tests and at midnight they said we (my friend stayed with me all the time) were free to leave, but, the doctor had not signed the release, which took 30 minutes longer.
The entire time I had nothing to eat or drink; I was dehydrated and my dear friend was hungry and so was I, having nothing to eat since noon that day. The hospital had nothing to offer at midnight. But they did give us an inch of cheese and two crackers.
The doctor on signing the release remarked “are you enjoying hospital fare?”
There is much more. Why was the temperature so low all the time while we were there, almost eight hours?
Having not voided in eight hours the board upon which I had laid and the sheet were somewhat drenched, but not changed.
I have heard a lot of horror stories regarding the long waiting periods at the Red Deer Regional Hospital Center Emergency Center.
My dear departed husband several years ago suffered in the Emergency Department of the Red Deer Hospital. He was a Veteran having served in the liberation of Holland, was wounded badly, survived that ordeal and then had to survive the indignities of the Emergency Deptartment at Red Deer. But that is another horror story.
The ambulance medics were great!
My dear friend asked the doctor why the lengthy waiting periods. She replied “there is a shortage of registered nurses.”
He was inclined to believe a shortage of medical doctors, perchance?
I too am an Allied Forces Veteran, (A.T.S) British Women’s’ Army for three and one-half years and I am eighty-seven years young.
Naturally this does not afford me any special treatment or consideration and I did not ask for that.
Irene James
Red Deer