I was in the hospital - as a patient

This is gonna sound very funny but it did happen to me. What else? My life has always been filled with stories like this, no wonder my friends call me a clown =)


7pm Thursday, I met up with a very sweet young lady for dinner. I was having a very yummy chicken salad and all of a sudden , I had this very severe abdominal pain, it felt as if a pair of invisible hands were holding both ends of my bowels and squeezing them real hard...I went home, tried to have some rest but the pain just wouldn't go away.


I was in agony and couldn't help but cry and pray the whole night. 10 hours passed, the pain was still there, and became more severe. And I threw up twice.


Well, this is very embarrassing but I have to confess that in the course of this pain I did something very stupid. Initially when the pain was a generalized cramping pain, I thought it was my period cramp so based on my personal experience and limited medical knowledge, I took some NSAIDs and thought it should calm the pain. It did not occur to me that I should NOT have taken the NSAIDs until the pain became a localised epigastric pain, when it is localised epigastric pain, it is very likely to be a gastric problem. I was like 'Oh God, how can I be so dumb?!!! shame on you SW shame on you!'....NSAIDs are contraindicated in gastric, it is utterly unacceptable that a medically trained person would do such thing on herself. I was really quite amused by myself.


Initially I rejected the idea of going to the hospital because I know what the doctors would do to me because that is what I would do to any patients who come in with epigastric pain. I knew they would most probably give me some pain killer and send me home. But at 6 am, the pain was so great that I had to call my colleague.


He rushed to my place (he confessed later that he actually had to wear his dirty clothes because that was what he could grab from the floor in his haste to come over). And guess what? As we were going to the hospital, I realized my medical cover had just expired a few days ago.


So we had to go to the public hospital in town, the very famous hospital where I used to work as a medical student. While waiting for the doctor, we were formulating the standard questions he/she might ask, the possible procedures they might perform and the medicines that they might give. And we have agreed that if they wanted to put up a drip, I would probably let my friend put in the needle because he is very skilled.


As I was lying in one of the cubicles, I heard a very familiar voice. I remember that doc , he gave me a tough time when I did my placement there as medical student. I was sliding down the bed and hiding my face underneath the blanket and whispered to my friend, 'I dun wanna be seen by him.'


My very cheeky friend thought I should have gone to our hospital because i would probably get seen sooner, and one of our good friends was on duty, he can examine me. Nawwww no way! I'd not go back to my own hospital and let anyone whom i know lay one finger on my tummy.


Finally at 8 am, a doctor came. To help saving his time, I went straight to presenting my own history to him. It felt very odd, I present cases to my colleagues/bosses everyday, just that now I was presenting myself. It went like 'I presented with 12 hours of acute onset severe abdo pain 9/10 , started generalised and later localised in epigastrium, colicky in nature. Associated with 2 episodes of vomiting. No diarrhea .........' (I skipped the part where I took NSAIDs out of my stupidity hehe :P)


As soon as he heard my 'case presentation' he knew I was medically trained, and in addition to that , it gave him a good laugh when we introduced ourselves as interns working in the EMERGENCY DEPT of another hospital. What an irony, he smiled and said.


So, the nurse came to give me some injection in my bum. I jab many patients everyday, I assure you that it certainly did not feel good to be at the receiving end.


Just like what I predicted, they gave me some pain killer and a medical certificate, and sent me home.


What a wonderful experience to be a patient in the Emergency dept while I myself am currently working at the emergency dept of another hospital. My friend just could not stop laughing at me while he drove me home and he promised he would circulate the story amongst our colleagues and give everyone a good laugh =) If he ever does that, I will thank him by telling everyone he looked like a porn star in the clothes that he wore in a haste, the V neck jumper without anything underneath :P