You may have to venture out in a pandemic

You may have to venture out in a pandemic even if you don't want to or plan to. We are planning on sheltering in place once the pandemic hits, however we had a situation Thursday afternoon  where we were forced to go to the ER. I thought I had plenty of medical supplies to deal with most things at home in case of a pandemic, however my 12 year old came home from school on Thursday with pain in her lower right abdomen. We had to go to the ER, after a 4 hour wait, they ran many tests and turns out she had appendacitis, and it was very bad, they called the surgeon in and did emergency surgery at 12:00am. She got to come home yesterday evening, the doctor said he really wanted her out of there as fast as possible so she did not catch anything else from the other people on the floor with her. Luckily we did have a private room. It just goes to show you can't plan everything and unexpected things do come up, I am just glad this didn't happen during a pandemic. So this got me to thinking about how I would handle an emergency like this if there were a pandemic? How long would I wait to go or take someone to the ER? Would I wait too long and it be too late? Just some things to think about.

Penham,  I am so glad that your daughter and back at home.   If faced with a situation like that, I guess you'd have to go to a hospital.  What else could you do?  But you do make me think that I should know how to set bones and do some other simple medical procedures.  The hospitals will be completely overwhelmed during a pandemic, and of course, you don't want to be there breathing all of those germs anyway!

How long is the standard recovery time from appendicitis?   If you want some good survival type novels to read with her during her down time, you might want to buy Hatchet or Spirit Bear.  Both are kid friendly, though Spirit Bear has a bit of violence in the beginning.

Gexydaf, the recovery time is 8-10 weeks the doctor said, 10 days before she can return to school, she sees him for followup the end of the week. They had to do regular surgery, said they couldn't do the laproscopy, which is what they initially planned until the surgeon saw the report, then changed his mind. It all happened so fast once we got the test results back, the doctor was there and she was in surgery within 30 minutes of us finding out what was wrong. I have really never seen them move that fast before, they had people hooking her up to an IV and starting pain meds, me signing paperwork and the OR nurse in there explaining what was going on all at the same time, then the doc came in and we went to recovery where she got ready and she walked into surgery (she couldn't walk prior to getting pain meds). The surgery was over in an hour and she was in a room by 1:30am. The whole time I kept thinking about a pandemic situation how different it would be, how they wouldn't be able to move so quickly because they would be tied up with other patients. Thanks for the tips on the books.

Wow Penham, that's scary. Good thing you got her to a hospital and popped that thing out as fast as you did. Sepsis probably isn't any fun!

Penham, I am so happy your daughter is getting better. Nothing worse than a sick child! It causes parents to fear because we love them so much.

I have thought about having something like this happen! My only answer is go the the hospital wearing masks, goggles, and gloves and bring lots of masks, gloves, clorox wipes, lysol and Pray Pray Pray!

Sometimes you have no choice and as my Mother taught me, "Do the best you can."

penham..glad your daughter is okay.....maybe hospitals will need to get those beeper things they use a restaurants and we can wait outside away from all the germy people ....just a thought...or take our own walkie talkies or cell phones call me when its my turn please.....if its cold out we might freeze to death waiting as slow as most ER's  get...but sure glad they acted fast with your daughter.....

My goodness, I'm glad this post popped up again. Gosh Penham, you have had a bit of a time with your daughter and now all your downed trees from the storm. How is she doing now, 8-10 weeks, I guess we're at the half way point. I am glad the last post from you had your daughter doing well. Hope her check up went well, hope she is back in school and on the road to recovery.

starspirit wrote: penham..glad your daughter is okay.....maybe hospitals will need to get those beeper things they use a restaurants and we can wait outside away from all the germy people ....just a thought...or take our own walkie talkies or cell phones call me when its my turn please.....if its cold out we might freeze to death waiting as slow as most ER's  get...but sure glad they acted fast with your daughter.....

This nightmare you have open for us to see is one that a lot of senior people have watch for a very long time.  The government understands what will happen,  They will operate the way the military does things in an disaster. 

You only have to stay in for a few weeks during each wave I think. There is hope for us all. Our forbears survived by working a lot on food but it has gone out of fashion in the last 50 years

Imagine the cost of treating a person who develops symptoms of human avian influenza. It could involve many days of ICU care.

I wonder if the triage will include your ability to pay?

Avoidance during a wave is the best medicine.