[Zeke]

My turn. Spent 10 hours in the ER with my wife. Turned out to be a kidney stone. For those that don't know, the doc said the pain is equivalent to child birth and not an easy one.

Attention to the pain was severely lacking. In fact, the FD paramedics had to stay there for over 2 hours because the ER could not take her in. They could do nothing and they can't just drop someone off. Besides, she was on their gurney which they needed back to get back in service. I think you can see a problems here.

By the time they let me back there when she got a bed in one of the treatment rooms, she told me she was crawling out on her hands and knees to get to another hospital. When I relayed that to the staff, things began to happen and she was comfortable enough in 3 hours after writhing in pain all that time. not to count the time at home at the sudden onset. About 4 hours of the most extreme pain I have ever witnessed. Violent shaking, vomiting, sweating, it's tough to watch that.

I'm not happy about the ER in this large somehow well respected hospital in Long Beach. An ER is the worst place on this planet. The staff was extremely nice but stretched to the max. This all went down at noon on a Sunday, not quite rush hour.

They will get a seething letter from me and the worst comments permissible on Yelp. However, I will exempt the RN's that were in attendance. Once things got going it was just a long ass waiting game with a CT scan at about the 8 hour mark that took another hour for the radiologist to get to. The stone must have been evident in the first 30 seconds of review. By now it had nearly passed into the bladder. At that point they said she could go home. Another hour until we were out the door.

Had I known what I know now, I would have given her about five shots of tequila. But there's always a possibility that something else is happening. A quick EKG right in the house on the bed ruled out a heart attack. Paramedics should be allowed to administer morphine. I was under the impression they could do that. They told me they don't have any on the emergency vehicles.

Does that sound right?