The Johnsons go to the Emergency Room
30 May 2008 • 10:16 AM • Personal, About Us, NewsThis is a tale of 2 photographers, very much lacking in sleep, and their exciting trip to the ER at 5:30 in the morning.
After staying up working until about 2 am, Matt’s left ear decided that it wanted to become inflamed and cause Matt a great deal of pain at about 4 am. At 5:15, after searching WebMD for a diagnosis and google for an Urgent Care facility that would be open that early, Matt decides to wake Ashley up and say “I think I need to go to the emergency room.” So off they went at 5:30 to Bethesda North. When they arrived, there was only 1 other patient there, leaving them to believe that this trip might be faster than they originally thought. Little did they know… Within about 20 minutes of their arrival, 8 other patients walked in, 3 of which had far more serious conditions that Matt’s. So they waited, and waited, and waited, and waited (you get the idea.) Finally around 7:30, they are called back to room, only to wait a little longer for a doctor to come in, look into Matt’s ear for about 0.06 seconds and say “Yep! You have an ear infection.” Total time spent with the doctor: approx. 3 minutes. Total amount paid between the “copay” and prescriptions: $130. Wow! What an adventure.
And as a side note, does anyone else find it odd that the doctor prescribed Vicodin for the pain of an inner ear infection? The Johnson’s sure did!
Hope you enjoyed my story…and I hope your day started off a little better than ours!
Vicodin is a nice mild narcotic for pain. Sometimes Tylenol and ibuprofen don’t cut it. I’ve had a raging ear infection before and even though you don’t need the Vicodin for long, it makes life a lot more bearable until the antibiotics start to work. Weirdly enough, mine struck in the wee hours of the morning too, and I also had to go to the ED. Hope you feel better soon, Matty.