An Open Letter to the CVS on Wellworth Ave and the ER at UCLA’s Ronald Reagan Medical Center:
I’m bunching you together because I have the same message, and frankly there is only so much written griping one can do on the subject of healthcare and its subsidiaries.
You are both lashing tentacles on the same ugly octopus.
So I’ll write this in chronological order to make it simple.
About two weeks ago I wound up in the Emergency Room at the Ronald Reagan Medical Center with the worst stomach flu I’ve had since 2006. Now, I’m not the sort who goes running to the ER for a rash (that lady was there) or diarrhea (that dude was there, too). In fact, I’ve only been to the hospital once: the week I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, so I hardly considered myself the girl who cried wolf. I don’t wilt easily.
I only went because when I called my doctor and explained that I couldn’t keep anything down and I subsequently didn’t know how to keep my blood sugar stable, he said, point blank and without hesitation, “Go to the ER. You need fluids and anti-nausea meds.” I tried for about an hour to ignore his advice. The ER felt extreme. I only had the flu; I could handle this.
It became increasingly clear that I couldn’t. I was shaking, sweating, nauseous to the point of abdominal pain, and I couldn’t tell if I was going to sleep or pass out. All in all, it warranted a trip to the Reagan-tributary and I went, half conscious, and half begrudging the pending hospital bill. I know how you work. One bill from the hospital. One from the doctor you see for 30 seconds. And yet another from the second doctor you have to re-explain all your symptoms to because you’re there for so long, the doctors switch shifts and you’re now stuck paying three different people for sub-par attention and treatment. So it didn’t surprise me when I spent the first 90 minutes throwing up in the waiting room restroom. And even though it’s a hospital, there is nothing quite as shameful as puking in a public stall where a mother hurries her daughter away from the “scary lady.”
For the record, I was that scary lady.
I was scary. I was a mess. I looked homeless. I hadn’t showered, brushed my hair or teeth. “It’s an ER,” my boyfriend said, “everyone looks like death.” And yet this was hardly the case; everyone else looked fairly normal by comparison, especially since I wound up curled on the carpet of the children’s waiting room, shaking and sweating, half expecting to vomit on the toys, and patiently waiting my turn.
Apparently my blood sugar upon entrance wasn’t yet low enough to warrant a trip to where they kept the real patients. Finally a volunteer decided to treat me like a human, and brought me a blanket and a pillow. “It’s not much,” she said, “but it might help a little.” Another chunk of time passed and a nurse came to get me. “We have a bed in the hallway,” she explained, “it isn’t much but it will get you off the floor.”
They took me to a gurney in the hallway and left me there. Other patients lined other makeshift beds. There was no space. It felt like wartime or a really bad sleepover. I fell in and out of sleep. Someone came to process my insurance. Someone else asked if I was Mrs. Hawthorne. I heard bits and pieces of a nurse’s conversation with an old lady in the bed behind me. They were placating her want for an In-n-Out hamburger. “We can’t recommend it,” they said, “but if someone brings it to you, we can’t stop you from eating it.” “Good,” she said, “then I’ll get a chocolate malt as well.” It sounded like a great use of hospital staff time. Meanwhile, I was 3 hours in and hadn’t seen anyone. I feel asleep again.
I finally saw a doctor. “You need fluids and anti-nausea meds,” she told me. “I know,” I said. I got the first bag of fluids within 20 minutes. About 2.5 hours later a different doctor returned. “You were supposed to get anti-nausea medicine and another bag of fluids. Did you?” “No,” I said, resigned and exhausted. “I’ll have someone do that right away,” he said. Another 1.5 hours passed.
At this point I was wedged between a woman with a rash and a guy who told everyone who passed him in the hall that he had blood in his stool. “Hey, Tony. Did you hear?” he cried, “I have blood in my stool.” He was one-man band on repeat for hours. It felt great that this was where my emergency fell between. I dozed off again.
The worst part was that I was actually scared. I didn’t care I was in the hallway. I didn’t care that I was barely treated as a human being. But I had no idea what was going on in my body, why they were keeping me in this hallway, or when I was going to get to go home. It was just this endless wait. Feeling lesser than with every passing hour.
At 10:30 p.m. I asked to be released. “Well you aren’t in decay,” the nurse told me, “So that’s good.” Ya that sounds great…
“Great,” I told him. “ I just want to go home. No more waiting.”
Or so I thought.
The Monday after my pleasant trip to the hospital, while driving to the Westside of LA for my weekly writer’s group, I ran out of test strips. It’s what’s necessary to test my blood sugar and I tend to go into a bit of a tailspin when I’m suddenly found without them. It’s the same notion of not knowing what’s going on in your body; it’s really terrifying.
I called in a prescription to CVS as I was pulling up.
“It’s an hour,” they told me when I went to the pick-up window.
“I realize that, and I know I might be asking a lot but is there a way to expedite that? I really, really need to check my blood sugar. I’m shaking,” I said.
“You have to go to the drop-off window,” the intern told me. “They handle expediting prescriptions.”
I gave her this look meant to imply, Why the freak can’t you go ask. I’m freaked out and you want me to go stand in another line.
She called for the next customer.
The guy at the drop-off window was hardly any better.
“It’s an hour,” he told me.
“I know,” I said, “and I know that this is the result of my own poor planning, but please help me. I really need to test my blood sugar.”
I emphasized that my plight was my own fault, but he gave me a blank stare and went to check with the pharmacist.
“Ok,” he said, “Go wait at pick-up.”
On my way back to the other end of the pharmacy, I peered over the glass and issued a specific thank you to the woman in the white lab coat. She rolled her eyes and ignored me. No hyperbole. It was a brazen and thick roll, like the accent of my high school Spanish teacher, she rrrrrrollled her eyes.
And then I waited. In the corner, again, shaking like a weirdo. People in line were staring at my hands as if I had early onset Parkinson’s. Five minutes. Ten minutes. She still hadn’t processed it. I was trying to catch her attention, but she, like before, ignored me.
Fifteen minutes. Finally. It was bagged and ready.
I tried thanking her again. I cold stonewalled once more. Nice.
“I go the pharmacy when I am in a really bad mood,” an older friend told me, “That way I don’t feel bad when I yell at them. They are so awful there.”
And they are. Awful. Just plain rude and awful.
So my question to both of you is this: is it too much to ask to be treated like a human being? To respond to a thank you? I realize budgets are tight, staff everywhere are overworked and underpaid (well no, doctor’s are not overpaid- ahem 700 dollars for TWO minutes??!!) but what ever happened to a little decency? It’s part of what’s wrong with the whole healthcare system: it lacks decency and respect.
And that may not be much, but it’s something.
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I would ask if it is merely our healthcare system or is it permeating throughout society in general? The jobs certainly pay better, but apparently both coasts are where the assholes are.
I think it’s hilarious that you whimper and whine about not “being treated like a human” and judge them for not showing “a little decency”. Go back and read your own article attacking overweight people and ask yourself if YOU treated that group of people like a human or with any decency?
This story you shared is wonderfully ironic to me because it contains a legitimate medical issue (your flu) and an individual that made poor choices (your lack of test strips) and didn’t want to take any blame for the consequences. One could argue that those 2 issues are exactly what plague about 90% of overweight people. Why the double standard on your part? You can’t wait to vomit out an article attacking people when it happens to them yet you beg for change and play the role of the afflicted when it happens to you.
Whether or not you believe in “karma” is irrelevant. It would certainly appear that you are falling victim to it. And yes, it’s very well deserved. I can only bask in the glory of reading about you getting what you had coming to you and hope, with such optimism, that it might be a catalyst for some new thoughts to move in to that blossoming housing market you like to call a mind.
I look forward to reading your next article condemning all the authors that contribute to FC.
Hello again Wow. One question for you. How does being morbidly obese happen TO someone? Generally I find that the majority of overweight people are the cause of their obesity. Now, if Arianna knew definitively that say eating at a certain place would absolutely cause the flu and ate there anyway, that would be on her. Just as say an overweight person repeatedly grabbing that ever so tempting McGriddle.
Mr.G, I’ll answer your question with a question of my own: Is it that you can’t read or that you are simply too unintelligent to comprehend what you are reading? Next time, I’ll try to include more pictures so you can follow along.
I never said that obesity happened TO someone. I never disagreed with the fact that obese people are the cause of their own situation, just as Arianna was the cause of herself running out of test strips. The point was the analogy to liken some cases of obesity to a legitimate medical issue (as was her flu) and some cases to poor choices (as was her text strip dilemma).
The point is she opened her mouth to attack a group of people and then wrote this garbage where she faces the same issues and expects everyone to feel sympathy for her. You can’t have it both ways. Why is it that she can attack a fat person for too many big macs (poor choices) and then whines about the wait and blames CVS for her failure to have the test strips she needs (poor choices)? If her logic in the CVS agreement held true, then obesity is apparently the fault of McDonald’s employees everywhere.
So, to recap, sign up for that community college course to help improve your reading comprehension and stop trying to impress Arianna by sticking up for her. We aren’t in the 5th grade, so that ploy won’t work. And besides, I am fairly certain she doesn’t like anyone with the title of “Mr.” anything. With the thoughtless rage she spews, I see a large collection softball tournament t-shirts, Birkenstocks and Lilith Fair ticket stubs in her closet.
Along with some serious skeletons.
Why is Arianna’s prescription deserving of cutting in front of the other people’s presciptions? No doubt she will say it is because she urgently needed to check her blood sugar, but what if the people she cut in front of had their own urgent medical problems and were considerate enough to wait for their prescriptions to be filled without asking to cut in front of others? She asked for and received special treatment and is upset because the lady didn’t smile back while giving said treatment. I have a hard time finding a problem here.
My advice, if you don’t like the service you get at CVS, take your business elsewhere.
FYI – The vast majority of people at a pharmacy are picking up prescriptions for preventative medicine and/or other non-emergency items. If a diabetic does not know their precise blood sugar level prior to insulin injection, the consequences of the wrong dosage can be severe, up to and including death.
… so, wouldn’t you think that exact fact would motivate a any diabetic to make sure they always have a well-stocked supply of test strips?
I don’t think your “wrong dosage” argument really makes any sense. Isn’t that a given for 95% of all medications? If the guy in front of her that actually planned out his trip to the pharmacy to refill his meds combating his acid-reflux went home and took 60 pills, I’m pretty sure there would be some consequences there too.
I think you are missing the entire point of the article. It’s not about the prioritizing medical need. It’s about an author complaining about not getting special treatment because she feels she is better than other people. Don’t we all learn about standing in line in the 1st and 2nd grade? Just because little Johnny spends a little too much time at recess and steps into a line for the drinking fountain that is 8 kids deep, doesn’t mean he should get to go first just because he is really thirsty.
As the classic saying goes: “Failure to plan on her part does not constitute an emergency on my part.” Maybe she could spend a little less time writing worthless, egocentric articles and spend a bit more time taking inventory of her medical needs?