My Hospital Adventure posted 2/21/2008 11:14:13 PM | 0 kudos what's this?     report abuse tagged: humor, hospital

stickshiftsally

After several stressful weeks and surviving the tornadoes that destroyed most of Prattville Alabama on Sunday(That's another blog), I awoke on Tuesday morning to discover that the chest pains I hoped would go away when I went to bed had intensified and I set out to the doctor's office. Little did I know what an adventure this would be! I arrived at the office at 7:30 when it opened and told the receptionist what the problem was and was told there were 17 people in front of me and I would have to wait. After gazing into the waiting room at the herd of people coughing, sneezing and probably worse, I decided perhaps I should drive myself to the local emergency room. (I have no family here and most of my friends teach where I do, so I was on my own) Upon arrival, the staff assessed my situation and immediately took me back to a cubicle where I received much attention in rapid succession. First I was issued one of those fashionable hospital gowns with the closure in the back. This one must have been the super sexy design because it came complete with an opening in the middle of the front. In comes a nurse with her assistant, Moses in tow who was, he later told me, 20 years old. It was Moses' job to attach all of those little round electrode thingies and set up the EKG machine. Well, poor Moses was not the worldly type and it was quite obvious that he was most uncomfortable attaching some of the leads to places he probably had never seen...I'm certain he is now traumatized for life and will become a monk in the very near future. Next came in a couple of very energetic young men whose task it was to take a chest x-ray. I'm sure they are trained to make jokes to ease anxiety so they asked me if I had a preference as to which magazines to publish the pictures in. Now there of course had been some comments about my being a teacher and how sweet and wonderful the little darlings must be and how special I must be to devote myself to the little sweethearts. So when they asked, I couldn't resist telling them that there was no need to choose because I had an exclusive contract with Playboy. They were so stunned...one of them blurted out he thought I might choose "Teacher Monthly". Ahhh...stereotypes! lol! Lots of exciting things went on in the ER that day, not the least of which was a guy in the next cubicle who kept trying to escape. He kept 3 security guards hopping and they had their hands full. Understandably, there was a certain amount of exasperation as they told him repeatedly, "now don't you take that underwear off again! No, you can't leave this room. Now turn it around right!"
About 1:00 after I had been on the guerney for 5 hours, one of the nurses came in and asked if I had gotten lunch yet. I told her no, so she said she would get right on it. It arrived at 5:30p.m. At the exact time they said they had a room for me. At this point I'm thinking, "Dang! they're gonna keep me here" They kindly allowed me to eat my breakfast/lunch/supper before whisking me away two hours later to my room. I got settled in to the room which I shared with a very sweet little 90 year old woman named Magnolia Chisholm. Miss Magnolia had been there for a while and had just been moved to a semiprivate room. She was a nice woman with many friends at the hospital. She also had bouts of talking to people who weren't in the room. That wasn't all that unsettling, but I do have to admit that when I was awakened in the middle of a restless night to the strains of "Amazing Grace" as sung by the 90 year old star of Ebenezer AME Church, I wondered if I had indeed crossed over! All day long, people came and went from the room, occasionally checking my vitals and taking me for part one of a stress test. The rest of the time I spent trying to amuse myself playing "find which channel Miss Magnolia has on her tv", because there's no way in the world I can hear over her tv. At one point she had some relatives visiting from out of state and they began to loudly discuss whether they would take any of those "stuck together babies" home if they had them. This was the topic on the program of their choosing. I finally recieved my first meal of the day yesterday at 4:30 p.m. after asking nicely many times for some food. By the way, they no longer keep pitchers of water in the room because they want to measure your intake of fluids, so there wasn't even any water to drink. Finally, last night, I convinced them that I would not keel over if allowed to take a shower! I admit it. I'm addicted to showers and I was jonesing bad! I slept like a baby, only to be awakened at 7:30 to do the treadmill test. Depending on the results, the cardiologist would determine if he needed to do a heart cath or not...something I was praying I wouldn't have to do. At 10:30 The cardiac doc came and said there was no damage to my heart and it was probably a severe spasm of the chest wall cause by stress...hmmm....are surviving a tornado on top of very difficult few weeks a cause for stress??? I coulda told them that, but then they didn't ask me. Oh and I forgot..the head nurse from yesterday came and presented me with a $5 gift card for the hospital cafeteria accompanied by a well rehearsed apology for forgetting to turn in my meal request. I didn't complain, but apparently someone did. I was released from my adenture at 4 p.m. today and Boy is it good to be home! Oh yes...and alive!!!!!!!! God bless those people who work at any hospital. They couldn't possibly pay them enough!

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Blogs by stickshiftsally: Father's Day from a different perspective Five generations of kisses An unusual dilemma And the band played on...sort of Kids Say the Darndest Things Dogs and babies Boys will be boys He's Going Home! Update on my little miracle A bump in the road The miracle continues Do you believe in miracles? My Hospital Adventure Another reminder of the meaning of Christmas Lessons learned in 20 years The Cycle of Life