For as long as I can remember I’ve been a very accident-prone person. When I was 4-years-old, I fell off the monkey bars and broke my leg. Little did my parents know then, that would be the first of many emergency room visits.
When I was 5, I was playing in the basement with a few of my cousins. I put my hand in the door jam and completely sliced off the top of my finger. That was a four-day hospital stay and a surgery to reattach the tip of my finger. All throughout my childhood, into adolescence, I would randomly run into walls, fall down the stairs, bumps, bruises, cuts, scrapes, and visits to the emergency room were nothing new to me.
I don’t know if I was just accident prone or wasn’t paying attention to what was going on around me, but when I went to college I made an effort to be more aware of my surroundings. It worked. The emergency room visits went away and so did all of my war wounds from being unaware.
Fast forward to, about a year ago. It was a cold, snowy day in February. I thought I would surprise my partner Scott with some of his favorite soup – potato, kale and turkey sausage. I had all of the ingredients and was ready to cook.
Step one: cut the potatoes. I went to the pantry and grabbed the mandolin. If you’re not aware, a mandolin is a slicer that should also be known as the finger slicer off’er. The way it works is you take the potato and you slice it down towards the blade creating a perfect sliced potato. You repeat this step over and over until the potato is gone. Easy enough. The recipe I used called for three potatoes and when I went to cut through the second potato, I accidentally mistook my finger for the potato. Yep, you guessed it. I cut through my entire finger. Immediately I wrap it in paper towels and hop in the car to head to the ER.
Having recently moved to a new area, I didn’t know where the nearest ER was to my house. Where do I go? What do I do? I started heading toward Clifton. That’s where all of the hospitals are and I definitely needed a hospital. I just remember thinking, wouldn’t it be great if there was an urgent care or emergency room facility close to our house.
I started working with The Christ Hospital and I learned about The Christ Hospital Urgent Care, located on Red Bank Expressway and in Ft. Wright, Ky. Both locations provide fast, convenient assessments that are conducted by doctors and staff members who are emergency medicine experts. So, they’re able to handle whatever your urgent medical situation may be, but at a lower cost than a trip to the emergency department. Plus, if you need additional care, you’ll have access to a regional network of experts.
It’s the best of all worlds for an accident-prone person like me – expert care, lower costs and close to home!
Feeling sick and not sure where to go? Learn about the difference between primary care, urgent care and emergency care.