A clear sky. Low 61F. Winds light and variable..

A clear sky. Low 61F. Winds light and variable.

Last week there were enough wires hooked up to me lying in a hospital emergency room bed to redo the electrical system on my boat. That’s only a slight exaggeration.

Anytime you jump onto the medical merry-go-round, get ready for the wheel to spin. And because emergency rooms routinely give patients the whole medical magilla, things move especially quick.

Quick became warp speed when I mentioned I had minor chest pain.

A nurse whisked me into a treatment room, drew blood, gowned me, and wired me up to a variety of beeping machines in minutes. The reason for my visit was to get a medical opinion of why, lately, I have had more-than-normal fatigue.

Why didn’t I just go to see my family doctor? Simple. Getting to see her is almost as challenging as getting an audience with Pope Francis.

But the other reason for going to the emergency room was to get that full medical magilla workup. Family doctors often need to send patients to specialists or for testing beyond their facilities’ in-house capabilities.

Not so in almost any ER.

In my three-hour visit I got an EKG, a battery of blood tests, a chest X-ray, a close examination by a knowledgeable doctor, and a referral/appointment to a specialist next week. The specialist appointment was a big score, given tight appointment schedules.

Before anyone launches a nastygram saying I am encouraging unnecessary ER visits, let me state categorically people with minor issues should not rush to any Finger Lakes’ hospital emergency room if their family doctor is unavailable. Most communities have backfilled the national shortage of family doctors with urgent-care facilities, most of which provide timely diagnosis and treatment.

When I made my mid-morning medical pilgrimage last week, I was headed to an urgent care attached to the hospital. It was closed up tight or I would’ve checked in with them instead of the emergency room.

But anytime it’s 911, don’t hesitate.

Once, while mowing the lawn at the Valois family cottage, I managed to disturb a nest of white-faced hornets. Disturb? No. Enrage is more accurate. The super-agitated buggers viciously bit my ankles, forcing my retreat inside the house. In minutes, I swelled from ankles up to forehead and broke out in bright red hives. After an ambulance ride to Schuyler Hospital’s Emergency Room, intravenous treatments of Benadryl and a steroid tempered the hornets’ venom enough for me to rest easy.

A few years prior I badly injured my neck working on my boat and was in excruciating pain. I was able to get to see my then family doctor. But she was adamant that no magnetic resonance image, or MRI, was needed to diagnose my problem. Rest and pain meds were all I needed, she counseled. Repeated pleas to order an MRI fell on deaf ears.

After many weeks of extreme pain — even on heavy-duty pain meds, chiropractic attempts at help, and acupuncture — my wife hauled me into a San Diego hospital emergency room where an MRI quickly uncovered the culprit: a pinched nerve in my neck.

Traction and physical therapy over the next year eventually resolved the issue. It goes without saying that had that MRI been timely, I might have been spared weeks of agony and months of rehabilitation.

My recent Labor Day weekend ER excursion has me regularly checking my sporty new blood-pressure cuff prior to a cardiology appointment to chat about some higher-than-normal blood pressure readings while I was wired up.

I’ll bet those numbers spiked when I was writing about that pinched nerve in my neck and Dr. Pill Dispenser.

Fitzgerald has worked at six newspapers as a writer and editor, as well as a correspondent for two news services. He splits his time between Valois, N.Y., and the Pacific Northwest. Email him at Michael.Fitzgeraldfltcolumnist@gmail.com. Visit his website at michaeljfitzgerald.blogspot.com.

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