Two Hospitals in Two Days

After we arrived at the hospital, my boyfriend  ran and got me a wheelchair and wheeled me from the car to the Urgent Care.
Now, when we got there it was TOTALLY EMPTY. I don't know if you've ever been to an Urgent Care of an Emergency Room, but the likelihood of either of those places being empty is pretty much zero to none.

Maybe this should have been my first clue.

After taking all my paperwork, the nurse brought me to an examination chair/table thing. After waiting for a good 20 minutes, an X-Ray technician came by and took  X-rays of my foot. I waited another 30 minutes for a doctor to come and tell me that my foot was broken. NOW, at this point there was no mention of a trimalleolar fracture. He told me it was a break, and when I asked him how bad, he said it wasn't that bad, but that it was still a break, and that I would have to have my Orthopedic doctor cast it.

Anti-fun

The nurse couldn't find the right kind of soft brace they're supposed to give you and instead put my foot in a Sprain-Splint, which was made of some sort of hard plastic.

At the time, this provided a lot of support and relief to me but I later found out that it would end up causing a lot more bad than good. The hospital sent me off with a prescription for Vicodin, and some crutches.

If you have a broken ankle, DO NOT wear this kind of splint

My boyfriend helped me get home ( I live up two flights of crazy stairs), I propped my foot up, put some ice on it, and popped a lot of Vicodin. The pain was excruciating. Mind you, most people upon breaking their ankle go to the ER, and get surgery right away, or at least get some sort of reduction done. Not me though, because hey…it probably wasn't that bad of a break.

I called my healthcare provider to find out if I could make an appointment with an Orthopedic Surgeon.
And that's how I came to learn the true meaning of FREE healthcare.

My medical insurance works this way:
 In order to see a specialist you have to be referred via your primary doctor, or an ER doctor. This means I can't just call the hospital and say "Hey, my foot is broken, can you guys get me in to see an Orthopedic Surgeon?"
I had to go to the Emergency Room after all.
So, after a long, painful and very sleepless night I made my way to the County Hospital E.R. aka my primary care facility.
According to Yelp (YES, you can yelp rate hospitals), the average waiting time was around 12 hours.

I arrived at around 11AM. Now, I made a single crucial mistake when checking into the ER. When the nurses asked me what my pain level was, I (under the influence of many Vicodin), naively said, " Oh, probably like 6 ….7 tops."
Now, and I can't stress this enough. If you want to bypass the 10 hour wait time, you better start crying and telling them that your pain level is 11 and that you feel like you're going to throw up. I saw someone do that, and they didn't have to wait at all.

The thing about a County Hospital is that EVERYONE goes there. The uninsured, the kind-of insured, the freak accidents, the "I may have the flu"'s, the "my kid put something up her nose"…. basically everyone. The place was packed. I waited for 7 hours to be seen.
I made friends with the people around me, I mean, we're all in this together, and many of them were still waiting to get in to see the doctor when I left (which was around midnight).

Two of my new friends were ladies that had  recently been paroled from prison, now living at a half-way house in Pasadena, while my neighbors across from me, a 6-person family, were all feeling ill with the same symptoms. It was fun. I let the parolees use my cellphone to check their Facebook and read some gossip. They got me water to take my Vicodin with.

Then, finally, at 6PM the ER nurse called my name.

To be continued.