AILING AND WAILING

A satellite ER is closer to us, but several weeks ago when I suddenly became ill, my husband, the second smartest man on Earth, and I, headed to the emergency room at the big hospital downtown. We wanted to avoid the expense of being transported from one facility to another by ambulance as happened a few years ago.

For what that cold miserable ambulance ride cost us we could have hired a fleet of limos with a police escort and I could have ridden in comfort with some style thrown in. The ER personnel insisted upon ambulance transport then because I was under observation due to possible heart attack symptoms. Under observation, my buns!!!! I remained alone in the back of that dark, frigid, noisy ambulance while the attendant rode shotgun with the driver. I was frickin’ freezing back there trying to make do with the thin sheet they tossed over me. My weak voice, pleading for warmth couldn't be heard above the roar and no one came to my rescue during my 20-minute ride for life.

My traitor of a mind started playing tricks like trying to convince me that I had already died. "Of course it's cold in here. Corpses are always kept cold so they don't start stinking. Why would the attendant waste her time giving you any attention since you’re already dead." I became obsessed with trying to remember if that sheet they'd thrown over me had initially covered my face. If only I could remember that key fact, then I would know for sure if I were dead or alive.

I figure that being dead is akin to childbirth or something momentous that you've never personally experienced. But unlike childbirth and most other stuff, with death you don't get the chance to build on your experience. As my ambulance skidded into the entryway of the big hospital's admittance center, I realized I hadn't given up the ghost just yet, because I knew that medical personnel would never hustle like that if I was already a goner.

There was one observation from that experience a few years ago that should have made us wiser, but obviously didn't register right away during this recent trek for medical care. Second Smartest Man On Earth and I waited five hours in the standing-room-only ER to be told at midnight that the wait would be at least three more hours.

Thankfully, early on a security guard brought me a wheel chair and a throw-up pan when he sensed that I was probably going to slide off the counter I had draped myself across. But with the pain in my chest, the skull splitting headache and pressure, the nausea and the violent coughing, I wanted nothing more than to be horizontal. The cold hard floor looked so inviting except then I’d surely have more ailments from people stepping on me.

It finally occurred to us that the only way to be seen in a timely lifesaving manner at this place was to arrive by helicopter - the heliport was so busy it reminded me of O'Hare Airport on a Friday afternoon - or by ambulance. If you got there by your own transportation, there had to be blood and lots of it. We struck out on all accounts and since so many hours had passed, we made our own medical decision that since I was still alive, I probably wasn't having a heart attack or a stroke like my husband feared, so we returned home.

I’ve seen three different doctors over the past weeks. The first one said it was the flu, patted me on the back and sent me on my way. The second hit me up with antibiotics for bronchitis and the third gave me a stronger and longer round of antibiotics for a sinus and ear infection. I returned to the last doctor again last week. He took another stab at it and prescribed allergy meds and steroids and sent me for sinus and chest x-rays. He said he may need to refer me to the ENT specialist. He wants to see me again tomorrow.

Well, this is far too much whining about my ailments. I hope you and yours are managing to keep healthy during this time of high susceptibility to the winter crud.

Ambulance Photo by Uberzombie