My husband is in the ER for the 3rd time in less than 2 weeks. He spent 4 days in the hospital from December 4th until this Wednesday, December 8th. Now tonight he had to go back to the ER. Almost all of this is because he didn't get the treatment he should have received the first time he went to the ER on December 2nd. He's diabetic to the point he wears an insulin pump, has a history of severe cellulitis and went to the ER with an open wound pouring blood. That's all on top of the fact that the ankle in the leg with the wound is broken and he's been out of work for over a month while waiting for a surgery date. He wasn't given any antibiotics in the ER. He wasn't sent home with antibiotics. All they did was put some gel in the wound that was supposed to stop the bleeding and they sent him home. The gel didn't stop the bleeding at all. By December 4th he was showing signs of cellulitis and was rushed back to the ER. The ER staff that day were surprised that he hadn't been admitted the first time he was in there. Thankfully they admitted him then and he was on IV antibiotics for 4 days. Then they released him - still with an open wound although it's not bleeding but it's still leaking "fluids". They didn't set us up with any in home wound care and expected us to change the complicated dressing system for this wound. I'm disabled and can't change the dressing so our grown son tried yesterday but it didn't go smoothly. (Probably because he's had zero medical training.) My hubby had a doctor's appointment today so he asked that doctor to check the dressing and the doctor refused. He said for hubby to call the hospital because "they won't want just anyone digging around in there". Seriously? It's okay for our son to have to change the dressing but you - a doctor - won't even check it? Whatever. My hubby and our son are at the ER again to get this dressing checked and make sure the wound hasn't gotten worse.
I know ER's are overwhelmed with COVID on top of all the normal every day emergencies but the first ER team really didn't do much of anything to treat my husband. If they had we might not have had to go through everything else that happened since then.
Hopefully things will go smoothly from now until December 16th when he sees the foot surgeon and hopefully finally gets a surgery date to repair his broken ankle.