Day: June 15, 2019

Prince of Wales Island (called by most locals by the initialism simply “P.O.W.”) has exactly one emergency room, as far as I can figure out. It’s in the clinic at Klawock – it’s not really a full blown ER, the staff is on call (meaning they drive there and meet the ambulance or whoever wants to go there, rather than sitting around inside the ER on shifts).

Yesterday Arthur went to the ER. He is experiencing severe, debilitating vertigo, leading to uncontrolled nausea and inability to even walk. My paranoid, hypochondrical side wants to believe that this is related to his brain injury from last year, but medical personnel can’t point to cause-effect, and will only say, “it’s possible.” Meanwhile, it’s simply labelled “benign positional vertigo,” where the word “benign” doesn’t mean what you want it to mean, because really it seems to be medical slang for “we can’t find the cause.” It’s hardly benign. It’s utterly debilitating.

We spent about 4 hours at the ER. He got fluids via IV (replace lost to vomiting). He got some medications. Hours later, it’s not clear they’re that useful to control the underlying vertigo, but at least they seem to prevent the vomiting.

You know you’re in a rural Southeast Alaska ER because the view out the doors (where I spent a lot of time standing and pacing and feeling useless) includes a shipping container and a lot of trees.