Solid Block of Ise

Wow. The last two days have been really crazy here. And not in the best of ways.

Thursday afternoon my girlfriend Ann-Sofie started complaining about some back-ache. She didn’t think more of it but instead took some painkillers and did her best to ignore it. Unfortunately this turned out to be a lot trickier than she’d imagined.

When we woke up Friday the pain had not gone away; in fact it had multiplied. The pain in her back was so bad that she had trouble standing up, and just taking a singe step caused her face to twist in pain and she whimpered like a beaten puppy. So, she stayed in bed for a large part of the day. We’d called the on-call nurse and asked them what they thought, and they said it was a sprained back and she should try to move and exercise as much as possible.

This was not an option however, when the pain was so bad that she had problems controlling her legs.

So, she tried to rest. It was impossible to find a position that didn’t hurt and after awhile we started to suspect that maybe there was something more sinister lurking inside her back. We caved and called an ambulance, which arrived after about fifteen minutes or so. The crew consisted of Conny and Andreas, two really excellent guys who asked some general questions and then helped Ann-Sofie onto a stretcher. After that we went to the hospital.

Now, before I continue I really have to give praise to Conny and Andreas. They were everything that a solid ambulance crew should be. They calmed Ann-Sofie down, they calmed ME down, they were courteous, professional, competent and knew what they were doing. All props for that day goes to them, they did an excellent job.

We arrived at the emergency room where Ann-Sofie was wheeled into an examining room while we waited for the proper doctor to show up and start doing their thing. And then the wait started…

Friday afternoon is not the best of times to be stuck in the ER. There was about a billion people waiting to get examined, and thankfully there were no major traumas (car-crashes or whatever) that needed the priority. The staff was however severely over-worked and everything moved at a glacial pace, and of course they had to put priority on things like little kids with broken arms and such. We later learned that much of the glacial pace also was due to the computers being down, so everything had to be done the old-fashioned way. Running around with papers to sign didn’t exactly speed things up.

So we waited. And waited. And waited. We waited for more than five hours, and after that Ann-Sofie insisted she would stay by herself and that I should go home and take care of our dog, who by now probably needed to go out and pee really badly. I agreed, even though I wanted to stay and keep her company, and took the bus home.

I think I was home for maybe a half-hour before Ann-Sofie stumbled through the door. Apparently she’d seen the doctor maybe five minutes after I left, and the doctor explained that the computers were down and that the line for the X-ray was out through the door and around the hospital. She could stay if she wanted but she’d probably have to wait even longer than another five hours. The option was obvious, so she got a hold of some crutches to aid her and took a cab home.

Today she had an appointment with the X-ray. Computers were still down, but she got X-rays taken and then we were whisked back to the ER, where we again waited for the proper doctor. This time the wait was A LOT shorter, and it was made even shorter since I’d had the foresight to bring my DS.

Two doctors examined her, examined her charts, examined the X-rays. After some prolonged squeezing and prodding, together with studying the X-rays, they reached the conclusion that this was just a really bad sprained back. Her back was in proper condition and there were no cracks or anything on her vertebrae. They guessed that there was probably a lot of inflammation as well. We’d been worried that it was a slipped disc or something of that magnitude, so this was a bit of a relief.

After that we went home and tried to relax. In this case it meant falling asleep in the couch.

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