She came rushing into the spare room I write in, saying we had to go to the hospital. Paul was crying, and saying ‘it hurts’ in Russian. Jenny was freaking out that he had a hernia. I’m freaking out that I’m now going to be an economic slave for the rest of my life, at least if I put my John Hancock on any of those forms at the hospital.
I don’t want to go, but what can you do? There’s some kind of bulge on my son’s abdomen just above his pee-pee and I’ve got to do something. So we drive down to Community Medical Center a couple blocks away.
First thing we do with a crying 3-year-old that’s obviously in pain? We sit down and give our name and address and contact information and emergency contact and lots of other stuff to some guy not getting paid much more than I.
After about 10 minutes of that we get to see a nurse, who then asks us all kinds of medical history questions. At that point we’re told they’re full-up and we’ve got to sit down in the waiting room where the warm glow of The Cleveland Show can envelop us from the wall-mounted TV.
I’m not sure Paul’s stomach was looked at once in the 20 minutes I was there. Yeah, I was going to blow up on someone so left – I just couldn’t take the medical clerk continually asking me for an emergency contact name and number so that form could be completed and filed…it just didn’t seem important to me.
I hate hospitals, so now I’m at home, waiting to see what’ll happen. Thankfully we have Montana Healthy Kids or we’d really be screwed.
Ah, and just another week or so before the Obamacare marketplaces opened up again!
I just can’t help but think this will end badly. I have no idea what’s wrong with Paul, no idea what this will cost, and I’m pretty positive not my wife or I will be working tomorrow.
Boy, life in Missoula today, one step forward and two steps back, you never get anywhere and it’s just one thing after another.
Update: We went to the hospital at about 10:30, I went home for a bit, headed back until 12:30, and now am back home.
The doctor looked at Paul and they're going to do an ultrasound to determine what exactly they need to do. At that point they'll try to push the hernia back in, and they'll most likely give Paul a shot of ketamine so he won't feel the pain, as the doctor really has to give it the "old college try" when it comes to pushing that thing back.
Paul threw up while laying on the stretcher and then they had a helluva time getting a Loritab into him.
Why do these things happen? Boy I hope he doesn't need surgery.
Update: It' 4:22 AM. I never should have moved back to Missoula, never should have moved back to America from China. It was a huge mistake, as was having a kid.
There's no hope in America, not when you've got to somehow get your 3-year-old to Spokane by Monday to do surgery at $7,000.
A lot of people don't understand why so many soldiers coming back from our wars kill themselves.
I don't understand why more don't.
This is a terrible country we live in, terrible.