Had to call 119 last night and it was a pretty awful experience. (Rant/Information)

This week, my wife and I have been at home with a bad case of covid. It’s been rough, but she definitely got the worst of it, and all yesterday afternoon her fever was pushing 39. I was being a real pain in the ass about keeping it under 40, so I had her on a constant rotation of ice packs, popsicles, cold compresses, and Tylenol.

At midnight we finally got ready for bed, and while I was getting her stuff ready, she went to the bathroom to brush her teeth. About a minute later, I heard a loud crash. I ran in and found her on the floor, unconscious and slightly convulsing. She was breathing, but for about two minutes she was completely unresponsive. There wasn’t enough room to lay her down properly, so I sat her up, held her, and called 119. During the call she regained consciousness, but just barely — she had no idea what was happening. From that point on she drifted in and out, but mostly out.

I got connected to a dispatcher immediately, but whatever info they had on my address was 5+ years out of date, which made it a bit of a frustrating conversation. I live out in the boonies, and apparently they still had the previous homeowner’s name attached to my address.

Anyway, after the dispatcher confirmed an ambulance was on its way, he ended the phone call. I was pretty shocked, because I thought it was standard to remain on the line. I wasn’t sure whether to call 119 again, so I just.. trusted that the ambulance really was coming.

From my call (12:03) to paramedics at my door was about ten minutes, but from that point on I felt like everything grinded to a halt. It took them about twenty minutes to get my wife out our door and into the ambulance, with a lot of that time being spent on paperwork. And then for more than FORTY minutes we just sat on the street while they called hospitals looking for one that would take her.

The hospital that was decided was the prefectural hospital about 10 minutes away. By the time she was actually wheeled into the hospital, it was 1:20am — almost an hour and a half after my 119 call.

To rub salt in the wound, the doctor immediately refused to admit her, saying she could go home in an hour after some IV and fever-reducing medicine. At the time he said that, she was completely incoherent and unable to even form sentences. He refused to even consider keeping her until morning.

Luckily, she did regain consciousness and, by her own volition, wanted to come home by around 2:30am. But I don’t think I can ever forgive the indifferent, disinterested and dismissive tone of that doctor. He gave the impression that our intrusion on his sleepy night shift was a deep inconvenience.

My wife is home sleeping now and her fever is under control. It turns out she has not only covid but an Influenza-B infection on top of it, which is why she is having such a rough go of it.

I just wanted to share this ~~information~~ rant with you guys. Take fevers seriously. Keep up to date on your vaccines (we weren’t), and I guess cross your fingers you never have a heart attack or something, because it might be a real long time before they get you to a hospital. We are in rural Saga, so maybe things are better in the city.

Sorry this isn’t particularly well written, I’m low on steam and just needed to get this out. Thanks for reading.

by Wanderous

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