During reading week, I woke up in a panic and in extreme pain. I’d barely slept, and the pain was causing me to puke. It was horrendous and evident that I needed to go to the hospital.
I’m no stranger to the hospital, especially the Emergency Room; it comes with playing sports, but I hadn’t been since COVID regulations fell into place. So, I grabbed my mask and prayed I wouldn’t throw up all over it (Spoiler: Once I was in the ER, I would try to get my mask off so I could throw up and I would not succeed).
At the moment, I wasn’t overly worried about how my experience might be different… I was in too much pain to consider anything other than making it to the front desk. Looking back, I’m glad I didn’t let my mind wander. I surely could have created horrendous scenarios in my head that would do me no good.
Intake wasn’t much different, aside from the check-in and standard COVID-related questionnaire: Do you have a fever, coughing, soreness of throat, etc.? Have you been in contact with someone who may have contracted COVID?
The basics.
It wasn’t until after triage that things were truly different.
Visitors weren’t allowed, which meant that my mother, who’d been so wonderful at getting me there and calming me down, could not come with me for what would turn out to be a 9-hour hospital visit. I was in pain that prevented walking without assistance, crying out and crying. Not only was my mother a source of comfort for me, but she was also worried.
I’m not saying I think the rules and regulations are bad – I fully understand their importance, but I do know that at that moment I felt like a small child lost in a supermarket.
So, I continued my hospital journey wheelchair-bound and alone.
Honestly, a hospital is probably one of the safest places to be around people because of how strict the rules are. Never once did I feel unsafe because of my surroundings. The extreme pain? Definitely. The hospital? Not at all.
Of course, throughout my entire visit, I had to wear a mask. I was also hooked up to a few monitors and guess what? A mask doesn’t affect your oxygen levels! But addressing that is a whole other can of worms.
For a hospital experience, it wasn’t bad. Yes, there were changes due to COVID and yes, the emergency room was definitely interesting. However, the precautions and regulations we had to take made sense and weren’t entirely taxing. Sure, some things were annoying, like the hours of wearing a mask, and it was stressful for my family to not know what was happening, but there were reasons behind it.
The safety of myself and those around me outweighed any of the negatives, and as such, my experience being in the emergency room during COVID was not so different from any other visit.