How NOT to spend 4 hours

Went to the hospital finally to have my knee looked at. Left here about 4 pm. Got home a little after 8 pm. I really hate hospitals to begin with, but man, that is the longest 4 hours I can think of in my life. Jen, love her to death for taking me, and I went to the wrong place to start. I guess you can't just walk ( or in my case hobble ) down to the First care center, you need to go to emergency triage first to give them information and let them take your temp and blood pressure. Then I got to limp my way down to the First care center which is now the second care place stop. I was only in the waiting room for about 10 min. and they got me a room. It is now about 5 pm, Kat is on her way over. The room they put me in was nice too, I had a radio, TV, and reclining chair to sit in and put my leg up. Good thing too. We waited in the room for an hour and a half. Until about 6:30. The doc comes in for about 10 mins, asks a few questions, says it could be an infection inside the leg that they will do bloodwork and xrays, and walks out. Me not thinking to well at this point, I am concentrating on the xrays and how bad it might be of an infection and if they might keep me for the night that I didn't hear bloodwork for what it was. NEEDLES!! Just as bad as snakes for me. Yeah, I have piercings and tatts, but they are different. There is no to little blood involed in those. And I get something cool to show for it. The guy who comes in to take my blood must have been kinda new, and he was training a blonde who was. He tries to set everything up, drops a few things, and gives her things to hold on to because he doesn't move the kit after he took everything out of it. Finally gets the needle in me, takes out blood, and sets up an IV. As he goes to put the IV in, he fails to hold down on the plastic tip in my arm, stopping the blood from pouring out of me and all over the walls. OK, so not that bad, but he does let some blood out and said "Opps, that's not right" before putting pressure on my arm. Gee, wonder what the first clue was. The blonde comes back after a few to bring me to xray and has a wheelchair with no leg supports. This gets better. I hold my feet up so we can go down and the tech. gets me to hold my knee in uncomfortable positions to get the xrays. After the second one I can hear him asking if he did it right to the other tech. Must have been training night. So he wheels me back to the room with Kat and Jen (who I love for staying for so long with me) and goes out. It is close to 7:30 now. Jen leaves soon to get dinner and meet us at the house. Another doctor comes in as a second opinion and leaves. The regular doc comes in, give me the explaination of staying off it for a week and to see my normal doc. at Leeds medical. I get good drugs. Finally someone who knows something comes in, gives me my pills for the night, a perscription for more, explains the leg brace to me, and gives me crutches.

What a long four hours spent to learn that again I have not broken anything, just have an infection and swelling, and that I will be fine if I learn to stop pushing my body so far. Guess even Superman needs to take time off.