hospitals, and other dreary observations

For those of you who are faithful blog readers you know that the last week has been pretty crappy for our family. The Reenactor kicked off the week with a huge dose of strep throat, aggrevated by a skin reaction to an oxygen mask he used during a sleep test the weekend before, which caused the whole right side of his face to swell up. While he was recovering from that my son developed a sick stomach, then two and a half days later my daughter also began barfing....unfortunately she started her sick episode at a youth event at our church, and some extremely patient and kind women got her all cleaned up before we arrived to pick her up. Kudos to any adult who cleans up the sick stomach of a child other than their own.

Then it was my turn. For those of you who know me who read this, you already know the WHY of why I spent last weekend in the hospital, so I won't go through all that again, and for those of you who don't know me, it is immaterial as to why I was there....I just was.

I was in the rare position all of Sat. afternoon to observe the workings of an ER. When I arrived there weren't many patients in there...mostly elderly folks with chest pains, or stomach complaints, and me with my weird symptoms, which immediately baffled the nurse, and the doc. Within an hour two auto accidents had sent people into the ER, none of which seemed to be serious, thankfully, but with these people came huge groups of family members milling around and fretting. One of the accident victims was put in the exam area next to mine, and clearly the injuries weren't serious enough to forgo the weekly family belching contest. Are my faithful readers seeing a theme here? Do you remember my observations from the school parking lot recently? So I was laying on my truly uncomfortable gurney listening to the Family Gass entertain each other next door with their belches and Lord knows what else. I guess my summary after seven hours spent there, mostly waiting to be seen for less than one minute by a doc, and one CT scan and Xray, is that the folks who work ERs are really earning their paychecks...I wouldn't last one shift with the chaos, the stress, and just the emotions that are everywhere.

The second observation I will make is that when you are getting an MRI and they offer you the choice of listening to a local radio station, or just getting earplugs, think carefully about your choice. The MRI I was given takes about a half hour, and as I am somewhat claustrophobic, the notion of being in a very small confined space with a lot of noise going on around me (MRIs are VERY noisy for the uninitiated) wasn't appealing. I opted for the headphones, and chose the local country station as opposed to the local rock station, which the last time I listened to them was still hellbent to play all-Britney all the time. Anyway....country was my choice. They gave me the headphones, scuttled me into the MRI tube, and turned everything on. At first the country station was playing commercials, which they usually run in 6-8 minute blocks. So I layed there listening to local commercials, trying to remain calm, clanging going on all around me. Then, the commercials ended and WHAT came on???? Anyone? A flippin' NASCAR race. Sunday morning, in the mid-South, and OF COURSE the local country station is playing the pre-race commentary for that day's NASCAR race. I damn near pushed the panic button they give you to use if you are freaking out. I didn't realize I could just say something and the tech would hear me, so I laid there listening to the unintelligible garble that is NASCAR commentary trying to think happy thoughts. And I swear to you, it sounded like a SNL sketch of what a pre-race interview show would sound like. The best line I heard was when one driver observed that sometimes "he feels the stress real bad" so he has to take a few drags on a cigarette to calm down. No doubt he drives the Marlboro car.

And my final observation is that a good nurse is worth every penny she makes, and she probably should make much more. I was lucky to have some truly excellent nurses tending me, and while I wasn't really a critical patient, just a mystery patient, they were all kind, and eager to find ways to make me more comfortable.

I'm glad to be home, and future posts should get back on track with my usual rants.