"13 hours in the ED"

I had developed a rash from what I believed to be an allergic reaction. I was going to just wait it out, maybe use the healthdirect number, but the concern on my parent's face made me go to the ED-they were worried it was going to suffocate me in my sleep. I have never been a patient in the emergency room before, and I think from my experience, I'd rather just die of an emergency.

It was late at night when I arrived. I felt light-headed soon after and my vitals were checked. The nurse told me they were normal and I was probably dehydrated; but someone would rehydrate me with a saline drip soon. This never happened. After 3 more hours, I was still feeling faint so my friend went to ask again. My friend was told I would be re-assessed. This never happened. As the night progressed the rash was getting worse in both the coverage to my body and in pain and itchiness. I waited for 7 hours, unable to rest because I was so uncomfortable, to then be taken to a ward.

I was shown to a room and told to dress in a gown. I then sat there for another hour before anyone came to check on me. I recall I overheard the triage nurse say that I’m fine. I just have a rash and am over reacting. In that hour alone the rash had covered over my knees, though it had only been on my upper body before. After the nurse that saw me took vitals and asked history and symptoms again, I was not seen for another hour, and only because I pressed the call button and cried. I saw a doctor soon after who put in a cannula to take blood and ordered some swabs.

The next nurse I believe was on ‘their first day’ and they took my blood pressure right over the cannula; which hurt so much I made them stop and do the other arm. Just vitals monitoring. I was given an antihistamine, I'm not sure which one it was, I tried to ask but the doctors were too busy and kind of yelled it at me while walking out of the room. If I hadn't been up all night I may have understood, but it was all a blur at that point. This was the only treatment I received.

More hours went by. My friend and I got maybe 20 minutes of sleep, not because we were interrupted, but because we hoped we would be. We called a nurse a couple times just to see what was going on and were told that as soon as the final result came back we'd be on our way. Each time, though we called hours apart, we were told it should take a half hour. I was not offered anything to eat at all during the entire time I was at fmc, and I was too nervous to ask so as not to be labelled as a difficult patient. At about 12 hours after my admission, we started asking to be released, test results or not. I was tired. I was hungry. I was still in pain; the antihistamine only took the itching away, it didn't even stop the rash from spreading. It took another hour to be seen by a doctor to remove the cannular (why was it even there?!), at which point we just walked out.

At the time of writing this, it has been 12 hours since the experience. I'm sitting here, still covered in a painful rash that is now completely everywhere, with very little clue what is going on. I felt brushed off as a hypochondriac! I felt like my pain was ignored and undermined.