A few months ago, I rescued two kittens. They are so much fun to have around. I never thought of myself as a "cat person" but I appreciate the low maintenance cats require. With my schedule, a dog would have been a lot more work. Now that I know how fun they are, I wish I got cats sooner.
This morning, just as I was about to head downstairs when I heard Wes (the white cat) sequel and hiss. There was all sorts of commotion in the spare bedroom. I knew this wasn't going to be good. I rush in the room to find the cat hanging by his paw. I think he was sitting on the ironing board, which was by the open window. Somehow the cord from the mini-blind got caught on his leg. When he jumped down, it tightened around his leg and now he was stuck. At first I wasn't sure how the cord was tied and thought it might be around his neck by the way he was wrapped up and off the ground. I scooped him up and tried to pull the cord off his foot but it was to tight. Plus the cat was hysterical and wouldn't stay still. The sound he was making were terrible. Thankfully the scissors were in arms reach and I was able to cut the cord before he tried to jump off the ironing board again. But it was to late, the damage was done.
My left arm took the brunt of the damage. The worst of the cuts is on my hand, in the fleshy part of my thumb. Its pretty deep and bled for a while. I did my best to wash it off; while trying to make sure the cat was ok, who was also covered in my blood. I wish there was some way I could have gotten the cat to understand I was trying to help him and if he stopped clawing me he'd be alright.
I knew the wound was deep and needed a real good cleaning, so off I went to my doctor's office. She took one look at it and said its beyond what they can do in the office and sent me to the ER. Now I had a choice; go to the hospital I work at which was 45mins away or go to the one in town, 10mins away. Off I went to the closer of the two. Both are about the same size so I wasn't expecting a long wait. I was also a little embarrassed and didn't want the whole hospital I work at to know what happened. Especially if I was over reacting.
Maybe in hind sight I should have gone where I worked. Isn't it all about who you know? The care I got was fine but it took forever. The ER doc explained they were short staffed but as a paying customer I'm not sure I care. I know my injuries weren't a true "emergency" but you still want to feel valued as a consumer. The process in the ER doesn't seem to work. I tried not to use the ER as a doctors office but didn't have a choice. I know not to go to the ER unless you really need to. But still the process doesn't to be efficient at all.
At one point the doc said he was waiting for the lidocane and would be back in a few minutes. An hour later he came back. I told him I was just about to tell him to do it without the medicine because I was tired of waiting. I never saw a nurse until I was discharged and she came in to review the instructions. I know the data they track; left without being seen, door-to-provider time and then patient satisfaction. My guess, they failed on meeting those goals with my case.
Thank God my cat is fine. Imagine how long the vet would have been???
