An ER Story

I do a lot of hand sewing. One day, while sewing, an old friend who had been in New York for months came for a visit. I leaped up off the couch to answer the door, and then leaped back to the couch to hear all his New York stories.

Unfortunately, I leaped onto the sewing project I had discarded when the doorbell rang. The needle jammed into my foot near the ankle, eye first, and broke off.

My friend, whom I hadn't seen in months, was drafted to take me to the ER. My neighbour came over to stay with the girls.

At the hospital, I was asked what the problem was. When I told the nurse I had a needle broken off in my foot, she asked me what kind. I told her it was a hand-sewing needle, wondering how she thought I could have broken a machine-sewing needle off in there. She was very rude, keeping me standing to fill out forms. Every time I tried to sit, she had some other questions for me.

A doctor poked at it a few times, and decided it needed an X-ray. I was duly put in a wheelchair and schlepped off to radiology by a very grumpy orderly. Once returned to the ER, the doctor resumed his poking, finally managing to feel the needle under the skin. I was painfully injected with a painkiller, and the scalpel had just come out when the X-ray came back. All of a sudden, the nurses and doctor were all smiles; their former churlishness had vanished. The reason? The X-ray showed very clearly the eye of the needle. They had assumed I was lying, and that the needle in my ankle was hollow. They thought I was a junkie!

They were most apologetic. I was incensed. First, I was angry that they assumed I was lying, and second, I was angry that they would treat somebody that badly, even if the person were a junkie!