"Grey Nuns Emergency Admitting/Triage"

I presented to Grey Nuns Emergency with a bad migraine and vomiting that started in a very unusual way for me. The wait wasn’t terribly long considering current wait times, I waited six hours. My migraine got so bad as I was waiting that I couldn’t handle the lights or people eating around me in the waiting area. I was quite frustrated and felt that people were called ahead of me that did not appear to be suffering like I was. They told me they believed my condition was life threatening but not as life threatening as others.  

The pain was so bad I had to start asking for icepacks for my head to get some relief as I couldn’t keep anything down. They did give me some acetaminophen but unfortunately, It was evacuated pretty quickly. 

 I have some mental health diagnoses and was taking antidepressants at the time. I feel that this was factored into my treatment by the doctor in a way that was negative and overshadowed what was actually going on with me. 

When I was finally called back to be seen by a doctor, I was asked multiple times if anything changed at home. Nothing had, at all. I also told them this very unusual for me. I do have a history of migraines but never with vomiting and not with the symptoms I was experiencing at that time. 

They gave me some shots of meds for pain and nausea and sent me on my way. Which did help but I had residual symptoms for the next 6 days and was unable to function properly, until I went to another hospital and I felt I was taken seriously by their emergency doctors. 

It turns out that I had/have, 3 near occlusive blood clots in the veins of my brain and a forth non occlusive clot.  I feel the Grey Nuns missed this crucial diagnosis. I feel I am incredibly lucky that I didn’t have a stroke or worse