A Whole New World

I've never been to California until now.

I've never seen such an incredible sight as the endless lights of Los Angeles and the surrounding suburbs stretching out to the horizon at midnight.

I've never thought how comfortable I could be at 72 degrees all year round.

I've never woken up at 4 AM to catch a flight and see the sunrise from an overcrowded terminal.

I've never waited 5 1/2 hours in an ER waiting room so my friend could see a doctor who essentially told him to remove his post-surgery suturing himself.

And with that last thought, I've never realized how poor the state of American healthcare is right now. We sat in that room for hours because it was the closest hospital to LAX that would take my friend's insurance. Meanwhile, the rest of us in VoiceMale were trying desperately not to stand out in a room where we were the absolute minority. It was so strange to us, driving around in our yacht of a van that we would have to wait for so long to have a simple operation like suture removal done. I know that this single experience is no way to judge an entire system, but watching that people in that crowded and unclean ER waiting room made me wonder how they viewed what their taxes were getting them. Or what their time was be wasted for.
I only saw an ambulance come in with emergency patients twice. That isn't a condemnation or praise, but it seemed strange to me how much it set everything back. It seemed strange that our friend had to fill out forms, go to triage, fill out forms again, then see a totally uncaring and apparently incompetent doctor and between each step, wait an hour to an hour and a half.