If you’ve been reading for a while, you may remember that I twisted my knee running for a bus a few weeks ago, right before my trip to Philadelphia. Well, since then, it had started to heal; or so I thought.
Sunday night, I was at my mom’s house for Easter, and when I went to stand up from a chair, my left leg sort of just gave way and pain shot from my knee up to my hip. So, after work yesterday (I cut out about 30 minutes early) I took the bus to the hospital and checked myself into the ER.
When I first got there, there were two ambulances parked outside, and more came by while I was registering. So, I figured I was going to wait for a while. In the waiting room, there was a woman whose 1&1/2 year old had decided to clear the kitchen table by pushing everything off. Unfortunately, there was a hammer on the table, and it landed on her foot.
There was also an older lady who had fainted at home, and her husband was determined to make sure she was going to receive prompt care. He kept going up to the window and asking how long it would be, receiving the standard response of, “I don’t know.”
Well, about 45 minutes after I arrived (a fairly short time, considering), I was called back by a medical assistant, and he took me to the “Cast Room.” There, he had me dress in a hospital gown and lay down on a gurney so I could be taken to X-ray.
The X-ray was fairly standard; the technician took four pictures from various angles, only one of which was difficult to maintain. Then, I was wheeled back to the Cast Room, where I waited for the doctor to see me.
The doctor asked me questions about how it had happened, what I’d been doing to take care of it (obviously not enough.) He prescribed me Naprosyn 500mg and Tylenol #3 for the pain and inflammation, which I’ll fill at work today.
He also gave me a “knee immobilizer,” which is essentially a splint for the leg. While he said it was optional, he agreed that considering my job (walking around all day), it would probably be a good idea to keep it on to keep me from injuring myself any further.
So now, I’m getting ready for work. (Have you ever tried to put a sock on a leg you can’t bend?) I’ll see an orthopedist in a few weeks to make sure everything is healing properly and I don’t need surgery. My only thought now is, “How much is all this going to cost me?”
