Another Lesson Learned

Long time, no post for the Drs. Souvenir. Probably because nothing too interesting has happened to us. The most recent incident was another injury for me. I was hit in the wrist / hand by a hockey puck on Sunday. The swelling was immediate and quite impressive. Two nurses (WAGs watching the game) and a doctor (teammate) saw it right away and thought X-rays were in order. So, we went to the ER. 4 hours later, the X-rays were negative and we were on our way home.

However, the main lesson that we learned is that there is some distinction between an ER and an "Urgent Care" facility. For those not in the medical business, this is a distinction with a difference, at least to our insurance company. The copay for the ER was 4x that of Urgent Care. After looking it up, it seems as if you're supposed to go to an Urgent Care facility (and not the ER) when you have a non-life-threatening injury or illness. After thinking about it, it makes sense to try to separate out the really serious stuff from the less serious. My only question is why didn't Jamie or I know about this and where do you learn this stuff? I'm certainly not the first to suggest this, but there really needs to be a "How to be an adult" class that people should take.

Other observations from the ER:

• People are surprisingly friendly at the ER. Maybe it's the shared experience of having something awful happen.
• The people who have most obvious injuries (guy holding a bloody towel over his hand) are the people most likely to tell you what happened (lawn mower). However, it's the people who sign in, sit down, and look normal who are most intriguing. None of them, however, shared their story with us.

For those of you keeping score, this is my 6th time in a splint/brace/cast (wrist 3x, ribs, ankle, knee). I guess I'm injury prone.