An unplanned day

Yesterday turned into a visit to the ER day. DH. He's been having recurring fever, ever since Covid. Since Friday he's been feeling nauseous. Monday evening/night his whole stomach, chest and back was in pain. We decided to go into the Urgent Care, that is part of my doctors office, in the city. There is a clinic that is part of the small hospital in our town, but needs an appointment, plus if it ended up being something we did have to go to ER for, and get admitted, we'd rather be at the city hospital. When he had pancreatitis 3 years ago and ended up there (for 9 days), after he wasn't getting better in a few days, they said they would have had him transported to the city hospital. They couldn't then due to all the hospitals overloaded with Covid patients.

We had no wait at urgent care, but the provider said it would be best to go to ER. Guess we should have just done that, but honestly with the recurring fever we were thinking maybe he just had some infection they could see via a blood test and give him some antibiotics and on our way. 

Of course ER was a long day by the time you wait...and wait...and then finally get back into a room to be seen. The CT Scan showed that the head of his pancreas and the stomach lining area next to it are inflamed, but it wasn't pancreatitis. The ER dr said he consulted with a GI dr who recommended he could be sent home with some pain and nausea meds, lots of fluids and bland diet, to let the inflammation die down, and then schedule an appointment with him at his office, as they will then likely schedule him for an endoscopic ultrasound, to try to get an idea of what is going on now. It was like 5:45 by the time we got home.

He seems to be doing better this morning. I could tell he's not quite as bad, just for the fact that he did sleep much better last night then the night before. I just called the GI dr office. He had seen a doctor there 3 years ago for his pancreatitis and then they did an endoscopic ultrasound and then referred him to a surgeon to remove his gallbladder. She started to say it's like 48 hours before they get the ER chart notes to review, so can't even schedule an appointment. Then tries to tell me he needs to see his primary care dr first. I said no, we already went to a primary care type dr at an urgent care, they sent him to ER, and now the ER doctor consulted with one of the dr's at your office and we're suppose to schedule a consult, so he can get an endoscopic US done. Then she tried to say that well, it's been over 3 years since he saw the dr. there, and after 3 years it's technically a new patient status. Then she changed her mind (likely because she saw that it's literally like 3 weeks over 3 years) and told me she won't even wait for the ER notes to come over, she's pulling it all now (they are linked to the hospital system) for the dr/team to review and then we can get scheduled for an appt. I should at least be able to make the appt. tomorrow. Crazy.

Now at work trying to catch up on 50 emails from yesterday.