Chris goes to Urgent Care!

I had a pretty good streak of not hurting myself going. It came to an end today after I cut a good section of my thumb nearly off. I was actually just down the road from a Hospital, but since I could only imagine the people I would see in there, I decided to head to a nice little Urgent Care by our house.
It’s kind of tucked away off a busy street, so the hope was that it wouldn’t be too busy. Obviously, it had to be busy.
I had forgotten about the panic we are dealing with known as the Swine Flu. I heard the words H1N1 used no less than 10 times while filling out my form, with my thumb wrapped up in bandages, and Wendy’s napkins. I should have known going there was a poor choice, when the chick at the desk looked like she was going to throw up when she saw my thumb. It actually wasn’t that bad at that point, but I had driven all that way, filled out those forms, I couldn’t turn back now.
It wasn’t the old ladies, and weird parents concerned about Swine Flu that bothered me. What really had me thinking, was just how confused the general public seems to be about what an Urgent Care facility.

To me, Urgent care is a place you go to if your Doctors office is closed, or you have a medical emergency that isn’t severe enough for an Emergency room, such as three stitches in a thumb.
This is not the way the rest of the world saw it on this day.

Urgent care, is not the place you go to, to get a flu shot, that you can get at any regular Doctors office, grocery store, or pharmacy. The words Urgent should be a pretty solid giveaway there. Unfortunately, this was not the way several old ladies in the greater Polaris area saw things.

Urgent care, is not the place you go to, if you actually look, and feel like you have the Swine Flu. If you were one of the 4 patients in there today who fit into that category, you shot way off target on that one. You are looking for a hospital, instead, you coughed on me.

Urgent care is not the place to bring your 4 year old son who’s left arm looks like Joe Theisman’s leg. I felt awful for this kid, who was being a trooper about this. his parents however, couldn’t come to grips with why they were waiting so long. Maybe because you brought your child who has obviously a broken arm at the very least, to a place with no ability to treat him fully. My name came up first, and I asked if they would let him go ahead of me. This made the nurses super happy, and very nice to me when I got to come in. Of course, mommy, and daddy didn’t so much as say thank you to me as they walked past. What did I care? I wasn’t bleeding that bad at this point, plus the more blood I lost, the funner it would be to shotgun a beer when I got home. I could use the Karma anyway. But the point is, the Urgent care people looked at the kid, did what they could, and then sent him to…you guessed it, the emergency room!

If you are a mother on the verge of panic, running into the office carrying you un-moving child, while holding a bath towel to his forehead to stop what looked like a lot of bleeding, you also missed the point of this facility. I was on my way out at this point, and hope the kid was o.k. but it didn’t look so good for him. Without knowing what was wrong, I got a feeling he too would be forwarded to an emergency room.

Here’s a general rule of thumb.
If you are, or may be dying, or are suffering from something that will require at the least three trips to a medical professional, the hospital is for you.

If your problems can be fixed with a pill, or a shot, or you just have nothing better to do, go see YOUR doctor, unless his/her office is closed. At noon on a Wednesday, I gotta figure the majority of Doctors offices are not only open, but seeing patients.

If you have what can be considered a minor emergency, that will require no follow up trips, such as 3 stitches in the thumb, or some type of venereal disease, and you have health insurance, the urgent care facility is for you.

In the end, I did get a whole pack of really little condoms to wear over my thumb if I am doing anything where it may get wet/dirty, so I gotta say I came out a winner on this one.