Very early this morning (around 3 AM), my husband took me to the Huntsville Memorial Hospital ER.  This is the fourth time I have been to this ER, and every single time I have been unsatisfied with the quality of care I received.

This morning was a disaster.  Ron tried to talk me into going to Bryan, but I wanted to go to Huntsville, since it is closer.  My blood sugar levels were extremely high, readings that went from 585 to just plain reading "HI" on the meter which it does once the blood sugar level is above 600.

I gave myself very large doses of insulin trying to get the blood glucose down.  It had dropped a little bit (to around 515) by the time I got to the ER, but I was very ill, dizzy, with pain across the area of my abdomen I associate with my liver (after the horse kick from Belledonna and the cantaloupe sized hematoma I got from it, I KNOW where my liver is).

The doctor's diagnosis?  That I had gas.  I have never heard of gas making a person nearly keel over from hyperglycemia.  The only tests done were a blood sugar test (which verified the high levels), a BP, some x-rays, and WBC.   No liver function, no pancreatic function, no real diagnostic tools at all. 

It turns out the prednisone I was given to repair my shoulder injury (which I have been ignoring while worrying about other issues), caused my blood sugar spike.  The doctor didn't tell me--one of the nurses did.  I was so infuriated by the doctor's attitude, I just signed the damn papers and walked out (and promptly threw up in the parking lot from the pain).  And took 3 nitro on the way home.  

The first time I went there, I was told there was nothing wrong with me; but ended up in my doctor's office the next day with a fever of 101 from the gangrene in my toe--and the nurse who put the iv in didn't even use gloves.  The second time, the doctor refused to allow the radiologist to do a more extensive CT scan--which might have found the lung nodules I am fighting now months earlier; and again, he said there was nothing wrong with me, though later on I found out I actually had a cracked rib.  The third time, I went in complaining of chest pain, and no EKG was ever run.  I was given some nitro and aspirin and told to talk to my doctor the next day.  In all four cases, I was never hooked up to the most basic of heart monitoring equipment--which I would consider standard treatment in a heart patient.

I realized I was moving into the back of beyond when I moved up here, I never realized I was moving to a Third World Country, but that is the standard of care at that place.

I will NEVER go back to the Huntsville Memorial Hospital ER again.