1 Star
I have never…read moreexperienced anything so frightening, humiliating, and traumatic in a medical setting.
I have gastroparesis, and while I was out of state, I suffered an extremely severe flare-up with violent, uncontrollable vomiting. I was vomiting so aggressively that I could barely walk, speak, or breathe between episodes. I was completely exhausted and terrified, and I desperately needed medical attention.
Instead, I was left to basicilly fight for my own life in the emergency department waiting room.
My husband repeatedly went to the front desk because he was genuinely afraid I wasn't going to make it much longer without treatment. My two teenage daughters were with me and had to watch their mother deteriorate in front of them. From their perspective, I can only imagine I looked like the excorsisim, convulsing on the floor, vomit everywhere, in complete agony. They were so frightened and upset that they were even confronting staff themselves, asking why nobody was helping me.
At one point, a nurse rechecked my vitals (despite my very obvious urgent need for medical assistance) and appeared concerned. She said they would keep an eye on me. They didn't.
Shortly afterward, my condition became so severe that I fell out of the chair and ended up on the emergency department floor, literally fighting to breathe between violent vomiting and gagging. I was lying in a puddle of my own vomit, which by that point contained blood from the damage caused by the relentless vomiting. I was directly in the pathway of the ER doors, and staff walked around me.I remember bits and pieces, but i do remember laying there face aganist the floor, vomit everywhere, vision starting to black out, thinking to myself "this is it, this is where im going to die" It was the scariest thing I have ever experienced.
Other patients were more concerned about me than the hospital staff.
My husband eventually had to find someone himself to help himget me off the floor. When a staff member finally came over, he took his time walking toward me, saw me lying on the floor covered in vomit, appeared immediately annoyed, and asked, "So what do you need help with?"
I honestly could not believe what I was hearing.
Unfortunately, things did not improve after I was taken to a room.
The nurse seemed annoyed with me from the beginning, like i was being dramatic or overreacting. She took me to the restroom to "clean me up," pushed my chair toward the toilet, and told me to take my clothes off. At that point, I barely had the strength to do anything. She did not help clean the vomit out of my hair or off the side of my face. She simply put my hoodie in a bag, put a gown over my clothes, and pushed me back to the ER bed.
I was still violently gagging, choking, and struggling to get air. Rather than being treated like someone experiencing a serious medical crisis, I felt like I was being treated as an inconvenience.
Then came the physician.
I explained my condition and what was happening, but I felt completely dismissed. I have gastroparesis and have been hospitalized multiple times this year for severe flare-ups, including episodes that have led to severe metabolic acidosis and nearly cost me my life. Despite this history and the severity of what was happening, I was told that my blood work wasn't unusual and that I needed to drink water and orange juice before being discharged.
I was not supposed to be drinking liquids during the episode, yet I was being told to drink them as a condition of discharge. I did not feel that my condition was being appropriately evaluated or that the severity of my symptoms was being taken seriously.
I was there from approximately 11 a.m. until 8 or 9 p.m. When the doctor eventually returned, he seemed aggravated that I was still there and asked me, "What can I do to get you out of here?"
That question says everything about how this experience felt.
Nobody wants to spend an entire day in an emergency department. I certainly didn't. I wanted to be treated, stabilized, and safe enough to go home.
Instead, I felt ignored, humiliated, and abandoned during one of the most terrifying medical episodes of my life.
What makes this even harder is knowing that my teenage daughters had to watch their mother collapse onto an ER floor while staff walked around her. They should never have had to witness something like that, and I will never forget the look on their faces.
I understand that emergency departments are busy and that staff deal with difficult situations every day. I also understand that not every patient will receive the treatment they expect. But there is a basic level of compassion, urgency, communication, and dignity that every patient should be able to expect--especially someone who is actively vomiting blood, collapsing, choking, and struggling to breathe.
This experience was horrifying and deeply traumatic for my entire family.
