My girlfriend is in the hospital

Not sure where you got your information from but if a patient has symptoms requiring testing it doesn't matter their age. The doc will order tests if they feel it fits in helping the differential. It gets sketchy (with some docs) when a patient doesn't have insurance.

Usually they run a d-dimer/ct angio and try to rule out P.E. (hopefully in the ED prior to admission and post troponin/ekg results.) Praying they shot a chest film in the ED also.

I'm sure (hope) they also checked liver, pancreas, gallbladder...

 

I know that they did blood work and ultrasounds of liver, pancreas, gallbladder, and probably some other stuff in that region too. They did chest x-rays, at least 1 set of EKG's, and tested some enzymes to test her heart. She has had plurisy before which appearantly makes you more susceptable to it in the future so from the beginning that's what she thought it was again, but just wanted to be sure it wasn't heart or something more serious with the lungs.

On the insurance topic... she does not have any but from talking to my dad (who worked in health insurance his whole life) said that she can probably qualify for "charity care." Appearantly here in NJ if you make less then 2x the poverty line income (with some caveats about assets), 100% of your hospital stay is covered by the state. I don't think the doctors were in a hurry to get her out of the hospital or anything though. I was satisfied with the tests they ran

 

She's 34, not on birth control, not overweight, and only did an xray, no cat scans

 

Prayers for a quick revovery Christina

 

me too, i just hate seeing Plurisy as a diagnosis. i would rather here that every possible test was done and nothing was found.

 

cat scan may have not been needed, i doubt that they left out a d-dimer blood test if they did all that other stuff, likely it was normal therefore no CT scan was done to exclude pulmonary Embolism