While visiting my doctor yesterday for the umpteenth time this month, they decided that I had a fluid retention problem and wanted to rush me by ambulance back to the clowns at the ER for an upper CT scan. They made me sign a waiver before allowing me to drive myself to the ER, thinking it would scare me but I sign waivers before driving at every competition event.
Our half of the county is served by two hospitals, forced into an un-holy matrimony by government regulators. One is a small town hospital, and the other one is inner city about 6 miles away. The combined entity decided to essentially shut down the small town hospital, except for their ER. Last month, they started making noise about shutting down the ER next month as well. State politicians are fighting this, so it's definitely a popcorn situation.
Anyway, after verifying that the small town hospital had the needed test equipment, I convinced my doctor to send me there and not to the corner of Gang and Ghetto. Basically, the place looks like it has been gutted of any useful equipment for use at the other location. They are literally tripping over pedestal carts with vitals recorders in the city. The one working unit left at the small town ER was older, and appeared to have a dead battery because they had to plug it into the wall after a few minutes. Plenty of manual blood pressure thingies around on the walls. Despite the end-of-life equipment, the tech was actually able to get a temperature and blood pressure from me on the first try! The only EKG machine they had was a portable unit, and it had clips that wouldn't seat properly on the stickers due to worn springs or something. The operator had to hold one lead down as he pulled the strip.
Their donut of death was more like a donut of discomfort, and I thought that I saw a $20 yard sale sticker on it.
Once the tubes warmed up and the operator put the phone handset into the acoustic coupler modem, I'm sure that it took nice 320 x 200 images. I may go back and offer them $15 to buy it, just so that I can have my own donut of death.
All things considered, I would *still* choose to go to the small town hospital. Despite a skeleton crew and equipment that nobody wants, they know how to use it unlike the mindless minions over at the city hospital.
Long story short, I'm still not sleeping and feel like crap, so it's off to my cardiologist and I'll probably wind up being admitted to the city hospital.....