A bit of a scare..

There was a trip to the A&E on Saturday after my girlfriend who has a band had pain while swallowing coffee after our spin class. She had been out drinking on the thursday before, resulting in a bit of a hang over on Friday. Unfortunately, food didn't agree with her at all on the Friday and she ended up vomiting... not just the little PB that we do to get rid of food, but one of those wretches that makes your stomach move... then she felt pain from her front through to her back and couldn't eat for the rest of the day. She was OK during our cycle class, was able to sip her water, but didn't finish the whole bottle like we normally do... then while we were having coffee she complained about increasing pain. We both thought it would be a good idea to go to A&E and have the staff call our surgeon (we got banded by the same doctor). When we arrived the nurse explained that she would be charged over $300 to see a doctor!! I guess she didn't really have much of a choice... so she filled in the forms and we waited for the nurse. While we were waiting a lady and her husband walked in to emergency. She was clearly anxious and distressed - and was bleeding heavily - so heavily that it was running down her leg and on to the floor of the ER. She was made to sit and complete forms while she bled all over the seat!!! Appalling!!! We managed to catch some of the conversation she had with the ER nurse (yes, we were evesdropping), and it turned out she had suffered a miscarriage... very sad.

Anyhoo, back to the story. My friend and I were finally called to see the nurse, during this time my friend's pain had subsided somewhat, but she was too scared to drink or eat anything. The nurse told us that she had rang our surgeon who would be there in an hour. So we sat in a room and caught up (this friend was at my wedding, so we had heaps to catch up on!!!). The hour flew by, and before I knew it our wonderful surgeon was here. We were both really worried that her band may have slipped - but it turned out that the stomach was just bruised and swollen - thank goodness! He just took 0.25mL out and she felt instantly better!

When we were leaving the A&E my friend went to go and pay the "fee". Our wonderful surgeon stopped us and asked us what we were doing. We explained that we were paying the "fees and charges" for the A&E visit. Apparently our wonderful surgeon has a thing with the hospital that his patients can visit the A&E for free (as long as our wonderful surgeon is the doctor who sees us)... so no fee's were paid... COOL!

Anyhoo, my friend is now fine and has booked in to get the fill put back. All is well.

Cheers,

LBG xx