Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Urgent Care - Never Again!

Twice in my life I have gone to Urgent Care. They have their place and I'm sure are a wonderful service for other people - but not for me. I will never go back.

About four years ago I woke up on the morning of a road trip to Utah not feeling very good.  I was driving up with my new boyfriend, we were going to hang out with his family for a bit and then up to Logan to hang with mine.  We took off at about 3pm and I slept the whole way to Orem.  That's about 12 or 13 hours.  We got to his mom's house early the next morning and proceeded to go to bed....I then slept until 11am.   At this point I hadn't eaten anything for about 24 hours.

That afternoon we went up to Hyrum to visit my family.  My mom made my favorite meal and I couldn't eat any of it  :(  The next day I still hadn't eaten anything and I had slept almost constantly.  My mom took me to an urgent care where I was diagnosed with having ulcers.  The doctor gave me some antacids or something and sent me home.

When we got back to San Diego a few days later and I still wasn't feeling well but I had to go back to work.  After basically collapsing at work I was rushed to the ER by my boyfriend where they determined I had mono, pharyngitis and was severely dehydrated.  Thanks Hyrum urgent care doctor.  By the way - mono is no fun!  It's not just sleeping and hanging around your house like I used to think.


Last Friday I went to the urgent care in Springville after having a fever and a very painful cough for a few days.  I'm not some hypochondriac who goes to the doctor for every skinned knee so I hope that clears up any questions of how sick I was feeling.  The doctor basically spent about 3 minutes with me, dismissed it as being a viral infection and gave me a prescription for a cough syrup.

Finally, yesterday I was so sick of being sick that I went to the ER.  I was almost out of that cough syrup without any improvement and I was to my breaking point.  Come to find out, I have bronchitis and now have 3 different medications to help me get rid of it.

I will never, ever go back to an urgent care.  My 2 experiences have been awful!  It's like they don't care!  They have diagnosed me with very minor illnesses that have then only worsened and ended me up in the ER with a much more serious diagnosis.  

Never again!

5 comments:

Kati said...

Ooo, yuck, yuck, yuck!! I'm so sorry! I hope that you get feeling better soon! Urgent care, what a mess!

I would have to add that the hospital in St. George has similar issues. We were on vacation once there and my brother got hurt and went to the hospital and they said his heel was broken. Like a week later, they called back and said, "Just kidding! We read the x-ray wrong" and said it wasn't broken. So he stopped wearing the boot, etc, and then it kept hurting and he went to a doctor up here a few weeks later and they said that his heel was broken. And I know of two other stories in my family like that too. So moral of the story, avoid Urgent Care and St. George medicine! I hope the medicine works and you recover quickly!

Rebecca A said...

Ugh! I am so sorry! I can vouch for the mono being heck. Let me know if there is ANYTHING I can do! I hope you feel better soon :)

Dave and Lizzie said...

I agree with you! One time I had a pin go all the way into my foot and I was in so much pain because it was rubbing against my bone.. but it couldn't be seen just by looking at my foot. The Dr. that saw me at the urgent care just kept pushing on the spot where the pin was underneath the skin (making me cry in pain) and then he told me that there was nothing in my foot and to go home. I went to another doctor, had an x-ray, and had to have emergency surgery to remove the pin.

Lacey Voris said...

urgent care is never fun...i am glad they have them because it is impossible to see a doctor, but sometimes it just makes you mad :) i hope you get feel better soon

Matt and Mal said...

ugh I couldn't agree more. I hate urgent care, too. They always give me some random medicine like they know what their talking about, and it never helps anything. ha, one time, the doc told me to strip down and change into a robe, but then he came back in the room(without knocking first or anything) in what seemed like about 30 seconds. I was not done changing and it was maybe one of the most awkward moments of both of our lives. ya that was my latest experience. oh, the fun experiences...

oh, and i'm thinkin maybe we should have hot chicken noodle soup for our next class treat. ya, definitely. feel better soon!!