While Andrew is having his butt kicked by deadlines for his SIP (Senior Integration Paper) at Covenant, I thought I’d allow him to be my guest commentator for today. The following excerpt is taken from a recent email, with permission by the author:

ugh!  this saturday… brad thought he had a concussion, which if he did they can do nothing for him at the ER, however, we went.  no concussion.  instead, i had to spend the day listening to people agonizing over the death of their family and friends.  perhaps for the first time in my life, i had the opportunity to watch the entire process.  if anybody ever asks me to wait in the ‘family waiting room’ because the doctor wants to talk to me, i’m not going!  tragic or unexpected death is terrifying.  listening to 15 year old girls cry out for their dad, watching grown 40 year old men learn of a siblings death as they sink to a chair to avoid passing out…watching people pass out of their wheelchair and fall on their head on purpose just because they weren’t getting admitted fast enough — and all they wanted was pain medication.  watching more and more family of the same man with a heart attack walk in…wave after wave…and start wailing out loud because they thought he was okay.  having no truly devastating deaths in my experience to date left me emotionally unprepared for watching numerous families come in and think everything is okay, only to be forced to deal with funeral homes, psychotic relatives, the works…ick.

the ER sucks.