As some of you might have noticed, I didn't make it into work today.  It's been a long day, actually.

Last night we had the pleasure of visiting the Christiana Hospital Emergency Room.  What an experience... Jessawick had a very stubborned nose bleed (actually, it was the 8th one), and I was quite concerned about her because of cumulative blood loss.

Normally, I would have visited the nearby Walk-In clinic, Hockessin Walk-In Medical.  I like the fellow who owns the place.  He's a good doctor, and I like the way he runs his practice.  Alas, he isn't open 24 hours; and we couldn't wait.

We arrived at the ER around 9:45 PM.  The took us into a room fairly quickly.  Not surprising though, as a bloody mess is a bit of a biohazard in the waiting room.  We met with a nurse.  We met with another nurse.  We met with a janitor.  We met with a billing clerk.  At this time, I pointed out to the staff an important fact... If I wanted to not meet with a doctor, I could have done that from the comfort of my living room.

Eventually, we even met with a doctor.  It took until 11:55 PM, but we finally did meet with an actual real doctor.  I don't hold anything against the doctor, but I do think that the ER was woefully understaffed.  The poor guy was basically speed-dating about 20 patients at once.  That's just bad scheduling, pure and simple.

He wasn't much of an ENT guy; but that makes sense.  It was midnight after all.  He wasn't able to tell us much about the source of the problem.  The only solution that he could offer was to "pack" Jessawick's nose; in order to stop the bleeding.  This procedure is much more painful than it sounds. Either he wasn't very good at this, or he just didn't care.  Either way, it was very hard on poor Wick.  It's not a good sign when the doctor immediately starts handing out Percocet like chiclets.  Why do things right when narcotics are within reach?

There was a problem with this "solution".  It didn't actually fix the problem.  Rather, it just delayed the issue.  We were told to make an emergency appointment with an ENT specialist.

Splendid.

We finally made it home around 1:45 AM.  Wick was in a lot of pain, and she didn't sleep well at all.  I can't blame her.  It was a pretty miserable experience.

Fast forward until morning.

I managed to get us an appointment with Dr. Suh (affiliated ENT specialist) for the same morning.  The office wasn't too happy to make it happen; but we got the appointment regardless.  He was a good guy, and was obviously better prepared and equipped than the ER.

He helped her by removing the temporary packing provided by the ER.  The short version of his findings:  Try a smaller, less painful packing for a week.  Hopefully, it will allow the areas to heal without deeper intervention.  Still painful, but much less so than the ER version.

Thus far, it appears to be holding.  It's not perfect, but it's the best option available at the moment.  Now we wait and see.