photo: canva

Today is a slow day for me. So was Wednesday.

Why?

We had a Tuesday that was insane!

My husband woke up sick. Truthfully, I woke up to hear him wretching in the bathroom. That is a very rare thing around our house. Turns out I slept through the first time at 5 AM. This was the 7AM wretch and vomit. I’ll spare you the other details. But he had some of this problem on Friday night last week. It acted like one of those 24 hour things that he recovered from. He had 2 good days of normal eating on Sunday and Monday. Then this hit on Tuesday from nowhere.

I was going to go about my business that day and thought, maybe there is more to this. Maybe I should be more responsible and not get my haircut first. That is where I went wrong!

I was trying to do the right thing.

So we went to the urgent care next door to our apartment building.  stop  We didn’t have to wait very long before we saw the doctor. He checked out my husband and thought it was possible that there was at least a possible blockage in his bowel. I was surprised. All he could do there was to do an Xray of Ron’s abdomen and it was inconclusive. The next step was a CT and that couldn’t be done until he was seen in an ER by an ER doctor.

So, at 11:30 AM, we trudged over to the ER of the hospital where all our records are. It was busy, but didn’t seem too bad. Of course, we had no idea what their ambulance traffic was. They come in a different entrance. But how bad could it be? It was a Tuesday. The weather was good. It wasn’t a holiday. We figured it would take a few hours, but it couldn’t be too long. I rescheduled my haircut for 4 PM. Surely, we would be done by then…or would know if Ron had to be admitted.

We didn’t have to sit wasting time. Progress was being made…up to a point.

As time went on, he was called back to get his abdominal Xray redone, blood work was done as well as other lab. At intervals, his vital signs were checked. I am one to ask lots of questions, so we discovered that the hospital was full to overflowing and some of the ER patients were being held there until they could get patients discharged. That was why things were moving very slowly. The calls were mostly for people to get lab work done, not to get back to the ER.

The hours moved on…on and on. At one point, our daughter came and visited with her kids. She brought me a delicious chai latte that warmed my body and soul. We played word games on the phones and laughed. Ron even perked up for awhile. (Yes, they wore face masks.)

The hours moved on…on & on. Our daughter came & visited with her kids. She brought me a delicious chai latte that warmed my body & soul.

We started getting to know our fellow waiters and their family members. We joked about having a reunion party next month! But finally, after 11.5 hours, at 11 PM, we got in to see the doctor! She was very competent and pleasant.

So was the staff, who had had a grueling shift. One of the nurses had even been hit by a patient, a patient who was not confused that is! The calm that had been mostly present in the waiting room had not lasted once the patients got back to the ER evidently. Too bad. The nurses didn’t need patients to take it out on them that they had to wait. It’s not like the nurses were sitting around doing nothing. They were working on sick/dying patients who were coming in via ambulance! It had evidently been quite a crazy day there.

Within 4 hours, we were cared for. Ron had his CT, a bag of IV fluid, tried taking something by mouth and we were on our way home…at 3 AM! He seems to have been fine ever since. Yes, his CT was normal.

I’m glad to know the CT was normal. Worn out that it took so long to learn.

So slow defined my Wednesday. I was slow to get up and slow to go about my day. I carried out all my Thursday duties but late in the day I felt a bad cold coming on. Now I have my gift from the day in the ER…an ugly cold! So I’m cooling my jets today. Taking lots of vitamin C and liquids and hoping to shortcut the cold. I have way too much to do! I’m trying to take a slow day to keep from having to take a lot of stop days. I hope it works.