So here's a thumbnail sketch of my recent (7/06) experience at LRMC.  I'm not sure how helpful or interesting it will be, but if it can be useful to even one person then it was worth doing here.

First of all, the disclaimers: I'm no doctor (although I have played one on TV), and certainly no expert when it comes to medicine, even on the receiving end.  I've spent more time than I ever thought I would in hospitals, but probably less than most.  I had my back operated on in '89 and kidney stones removed in 2000 (both done at Carson-Tahoe Hospital, in Carson City, Nevada).  And, interestingly enough (for the sake of comparison here) about 18 months ago I had almost the identical problem (and stayed overnight for tests and observation) at Carson-Tahoe that I was to experience here in July.

Here we had just gotten through watching a movie (the last Harry Potter) with friends and I got up and used the bathroom.  As I was washing my hands I suddenly felt intense chest pain that knocked me to the floor.  I was unable to talk or move much, but kind of lay there as the giant elephant continued to crush me.  Finally I was able to stagger out of there and into the bedroom.  You have to trust me -- usually our movie evenings end a lot better.

Our guests left and Annie wanted to take me to the hospital but we had already done this dance before, at Carson-Tahoe.  There, after spending the night and being subjected to numerous tests which concluded my heart was perfectly fine, I was released to go home a lot poorer but none the wiser when it came to this malady.  The only thing that separated this incident from the other was the length of the pain -- while the other pain went away after a few minutes this persisted.  And persisted.

Indeed, while it would wane and vary it never completely stopped all night long.  And the next day, when I thought I was better, I was again washing my hands (just cleanly, I guess :>) when I was struck again down to the floor.  At that point we decided to go to the emergency room, even though my blood pressure and pulse weren't extraordinary.

Rule of thumb in emergency rooms: if you want to see someone right away, just admit of chest pains.  It worked wonders at Carson-Tahoe, and did the same here.  They don't even make you fill out paperwork (although Annie stayed behind to do it) but whisk you into the ER to see someone within minutes.  That was true in Carson and it was true here at LRMC.  I will say the ER rooms at Carson were much nicer, but CT is a much newer facility.  And there I met the first of all the very wonderful people who worked the hospital.

Without a doubt the staff at LRMC (at least the two dozen or so I saw) were uniformly the nicest folks I've ever met at a hospital.  I can't say that they were meanies at Carson-Tahoe: some of them were also very nice, but I didn't meet a single person at LRMC that didn't seem as if my care was the most important thing in the world to them.  The one exception was a doctor from my own family practice but we'll get to that (and he wasn't LRMC staff).