I realized how very difficult it is to get medical care in the US yesterday. Lots of people have told me that but i came about first hand information yesterday. Dont get e wrong.. if u r in a trauma condition or if you are grieviously injured iam sure that the EC reacts differently. Let me tell you what happened. A door slammed into my foot yestreday and ripped my toe nail off. At least nearly off.. it was hanging off my Great Toe with the help of a piece of skin. Sound euuuugghhhh.??? Looked verrry euuuuughhhhh... So there i was... Great toe bleeding...quite a lot and in pain... I thought i would pluck the nail off ...put on some anti septic and i would be done. Of course it will hurt but it will be done, see? I was getting around to doing it too... clipping off the toe a bit by bit and bracing myself, reassuring myself that it is not going to hurt when my husband browbeat me into going to the emergency and getting done by a doctor. We were there...teh registration took a while and then we were in th waiting room for around 45 minutes with our daughter running all around and being herself.....being a child at two... a pain:)We stuck a lollipop in her mouth hoping that it would at least reduce the noise if not the whirlwind activity. All the while my toe nail is swinging dolefully by the side of my toe and bleeding AND hurting like nobody's business. The nurse then called us in ... BP checked , temperature taken a 100 questions asked before she looked at my toe and then she went..oooohhhh That must hurt. I smiled and said ...yes it does. She then went around to asking me to rate my pain on a scale of 0-10. Iam like okie....lets c ... a 6 ??? What is a 10 ...rolling around with eyes up in your socket hollering??? I dont know... So iam taken to the room where i am aksed to wait for the doctor and then the nurse leaves. The nail has started to look more doleful by the minute and the blood is congealing. So i know that they would have to rub off the congealed blood before they can do something about the wound. Inspiring thought?? We wait for another 45 mts and then we decided that my husband would go home with the baby , feed her and come back. So they left. I was in the room with another family whose son had twisted his ankle and they kept giving my toe sidelong glances and they kept goinbg"EUUUUUGGGGHJHHHHH" I smiled , nodded my head and said ..I know.... An hour later the doctor came in checked my nail and said she would have to decide whether she should sew the nail back on or pull it off and for that they would have to numb my toe . Before i could say OK,... she was gone. She came back after half an hour.. i got two numbing injections at the foot of my Great Toe... oh yes... it was very very very painful and then she said that it is going to take a while for the toe to get numb and she was gone again!!!! Another 45 mts , my husband returned having left the baby with our friend who lives in the same house and another round of "Euuuuughhh"ing and "That must hurt"ing and half hour later the doctor came back. She cleaned the wound again , and pulled the nail off and cut the loose skin off and said that someone will come along to dress the wound and almost flew. They had a busy day . The nurse came along after 15 minutes to dress up the wound and after all the after care instructions we finally left for home. After 4 hours. OOOOOHHHH BOY!!!!!!!