Boston Children's

This morning did not go at all as planned. I was supposed to meet with my group to work on a project, but I ended up taking a friend to the emergency room instead. Tierney met me at the library to work, but she looked like death warmed over and couldn't breathe. Because we didn't realize that campus safety would have given us a free ride, we walked the couple blocks to the nearest hospital to main campus, which is actually the Boston Children's Hospital. But they didn't worry so much about her not being a child, since it was pretty clear that walking to the next facility wasn't going to be a good idea.

So nobody gets worried, I'll tell you right now that it turns out that she has gall stones and was experiencing a gall bladder attack (before today I didn't know they could do that). But it took over 4 hours for them to figure it out. We spent the intervening time discussing our King Arthur project and anything else that might distract her from the needles. A friendly nurse named Wally drew blood, but then they had to try twice to get an IV in to give her fluids, and that didn't go over well. In the end, it was an ultrasound that showed the problem for what it was, but I couldn't be there for that part. I had to go back to campus for class, Tierney having assured me that she would be fine.

I think this was the first time I've been to the emergency room for someone else. It's a very different experience when you're not the one in pain. It didn't feel as if we had been there 4 hours, though apparently we had by the end of things. That was time I would have been using to get work done, but it was better spent making sure my friend was alright. It's good though, that we had planned to meet today. Otherwise, she would have been in the dorm when it happened and probably would have tried to sleep it off instead of going in and finding out what the real problem was. And now that she knows, it can be taken care of, though she wants to put off the surgery until the semester is over, if possible.

So, things didn't go the way we had intended, but a greater good was accomplished instead. God canceled our study time so the medical mystery could be solved and addressed. Sadly, no Dr. House. Maybe we'll get him next time.

-Kim