I like to spend my Friday nights in the most interesting ways possible - so it is only common sense that I would spend this past Friday in the Emergency Room at UNC Hospitals.
The situation was simple enough - I had a fish bone lodged in my throat. Typical, right? Luckily, I had a great friend to come along for the excursion. And from my first (and hopefully only) trip to the ER, my friend and I experienced the multiple stages one goes through in the several hours spent there (of course, this applies for mild emergency cases only).
1. Realization that it is in fact imperative that you take a trip to the ER for your situation.
Friend takes out iPhone flashlight and looks down my throat: "Don't freak out...but I can see the bone."
2. Catastrophizing the situation.
I'm going to swallow it. It's going to cut up my intestines. I'm going to die.
3. In the first waiting room - wondering why they allowed the man sitting next to you to bring his pomeranian into the hospital.
But actually - it was wearing a sweater.
4. The way the nurse looks at you as you're answering her list of general questions.
"What do you mean, 'You don't know the name of your birth control?'..."
5. Finally getting called to go in!
Oh...they're just moving us to a different waiting room.
6. Acceptable silence between you and your friend due to social media scrolling.
Why not make this picture extra basic?
7. Babysitting.
Because the cute five-year-old in the waiting room wants to watch Barbie Life in the Dreamhouse on your phone.
8. Hallelujah! Being moved to a bed! (After 3 hours of waiting).
(Holy...)
9. Waiting. Accompanied with delirium.
Why does everything seem remarkably funnier once it hits 1:00 am?
10. Anger
Or should I say, we were "hangry."
11. SFS: Sassy Friend Syndrome
She actually back-talked a nurse...
12. And sassy friends get their way.
And what do you know? The doctor shows up immediately.
13. But man is it worth the wait when your doctor looks like this:
One second, let me just catch my breath first...
14. Making jokes with your friend once the doctor leaves the room.
I'll leave it up to your imagination.
15. And the doctor walking back in while y'all are cracking up.
You have no clue what my friend just said about you, doctor...
16. Thus making your doctor feel significantly uncomfortable.
Probably the most interesting patient he's encountered, considering he obviously just got out of Med School. (Saving you the gory details...)
17. The feeling when everything is all taken care of!
Accompanied by the 7 hours of being cooped up in the hospital.
18. And, of course, giving your friend some lovin' for holding out with you through it all!
Cue Garth Brooks "Friends in Low Places."
Thanks again, Ada!
