It's a Team's Life

Pharmacy Clinic - Urgent Care - Emergency Room

Stay calm and assessing the options; is it truly a emergency or is it something that with a little time the problem will go away? In a team situation this is a little less stressful as there is someone watching over the sick person that can take the appropriate actions.

As a solo when not feeling well call a friend or family member and let them know where you are and where you are parked. Set up a time frame and if they have not called within that time or do not answer the phone then it is time to call the truck stop and have them check on the driver. Sometimes it is easier to call another driver as they are familiar with the truck stop and know how to get hold of the appropriate people that will go check on them.

In our situation Bob went to bed feeling fine and woke up to sick to get out of bed in the morning. Now it was up to me to decide what to do and after looking at him and listening to what the symptoms were we decided to let him rest for the day and see how he felt in the morning. He slept most of the day only waking to drink or eat a little. When morning came he was a little better and we went inside the truck stop to get a shower and then he promptly went back to bed and slept.

In the afternoon I decided it was time to take action and the first stop, which was closest for us, was a clinic inside of a Walgreens. I found the clinic using the mapping software on my phone and looking at the satellite picture of where I could park. The clinic decided that urgent care had better see him, with directions and an address in hand we went back a few miles to an urgent care and once again I found a place to park the truck. Urgent care checked him out and they decided the wanted a few more tests run that they could not perform so they sent us to the local hospital for the tests.

This hospital was huge but near where Bob needed to be there was NO parking so I parked near a gate and got Bob checked in and then found a security guard. The security guard told me I could not park there due to trucks coming in and out that needed in that gate and so they escorted me to a safe area to park and gave me a ride back to the hospital. Did I mention this place was HUGE... They were so appreciative that I had asked about parking and that they did not have to chase me down to move. I had to go back to the truck once more and as I started walking here they came to give me a ride.

Through all of this rigmarole and activity I could see Bob was really starting to look a lot better and by the time he had the tests done he was pretty much feeling like his old self once again. The tests all came back with nothing wrong and after a VERY stressful day Bob was released with all test coming back saying he was fine. Both of us slept better that night.

What we learned through this scare is that both of us need to be able to perform each other's job if needed. As time has gone on both of us have fallen into a routine of Bob takes care of certain things and I take care of other things and that has since changed. While we each have our specialties the other person has a rudimentary knowledge of what the other is doing.