A helpful hint

Here's my hint for you if you find yourself having to go to the emergancy room for a migraine headache: Try to be a pregnant woman.

It's the best advice I can give. Let's compare shall we? In a normal situation you might go to the emergency room and have to wait an hour for a room even if there's only one other person in the waiting room. After you get your room you'll be left alone for two hours until you are finally forced to buzz the nurse and ask if anyone is going to see you. After they let you know they've forgotten you they might send in someone who seems to think you're wasting their time. They will promise to go talk to a doctor. You'll never see the doctor unless he comes in to question why you're even there in the first place and to snottily suggest that you're problem's really not as bad as you think it is. After a few hours more you might get some medication and you better hope and pray that works because if you ask for more then you start to get the look. (The look implies that you're really a junkie and going through all this just to get an extra drop of morphine. This is fun.) After many, many hours you might have gotten a little relief or you might have just given up and wandered out.

Now compare this to what happens when you go into the emergency room when you're eight months pregnant. The triage nurse calls you almost right away to check you out. When she notices your belly she says that they're sending you upstairs "just to be on the safe side". Even when you explain that you're only there for a migraine she insists that you go. She asks if you'fe been having any contractions. You say you have because you're 8 months pregnant. When you go on to explain that you've been having bad back pains the nurse gets a strange smile on her face and cannot rush you upstairs fast enough.

Once upstairs you get a private, big room and attentive nurses. Your belly gets two monitors strapped to it so you get to hear the baby's heartbeat (and hiccups!) and see your contractions on a little print out. (That part is kind of cool.) The nurse immediatly gets your own doctor on the phone and they figure out a plan. Within an hour of getting there you have had pain meds and something to help with your naseau and the nurse has brought you something to eat. You get more pain meds when you ask and then you even get enough to get the baby to go to sleep and as an added bonus the contractions stop. If you buzz for the nurse someone comes in almost right away and doesn't make you feel like you're bothering them. When you're still having some pain they call your doctor again and then (here's the really amazing part) they discuss your options with you! You're sent home with more pain meds, a pill to help you sleep and a back-up plan in case this doesn't work. It's amazing. Then you get to sleep for about 16 hours and then you feel a lot better.

So yes, if you can do it I suggest only going to the emergancy room when you're in the proccess of being a woman who's 8 months pregnant.