ADVANCING HEALTH-CARE PRACTICE
2.4 Judy's Story
I was really ill with some dysenteric flu thing and I woke up at 2:00 a.m. one night so cold and just couldn't get warm. I was weak because I'd been fighting this bug and I thought, 'this is crazy, I'm going to emergency'. He was very upset because I was waking him up in the middle of the night with this foolishness. All I had to do, according to him, was drink more liquids but I couldn't keep anything down. So I said 'I'm going to go to the hospital, you don't have to come, but I’m going'. And he did come. I was thinking 'Oh finally, somebody else can look after me and tell me what I need to do'. It was a big ordeal for me because I felt like I was fighting against his idea of this foolishness and that this was inconsequential, that I was inconveniencing him when he's supposed to work the next day and he's not going to get any sleep. I didn't understand how my relationship was draining me on top of the illness.
And I was there in emergency and the woman at reception was asking my name blah blah blah and who's this that brought me in. And I remember her asking me this question, 'are you in an abusive relationship?' which at that point I was like 'Of course not, I'm not' and it's still hard for me to understand that that's what I've been through. And he was standing there and the whole time she's asking me all these questions. I remember feeling sort of embarrassed and at a loss but also put on the spot because I wasn't thinking clearly and here they're asking me these questions and he's there so I know he's going to question me about my answers. Then they wheeled me over to the next check-in spot and go through a lot of the same questions again. And that lady was a little nicer.
