Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

An E.R. Visit

A couple months ago, I took my friend, Dave, to the E.R. There's a back story, but we need not get into that. We arrived and were immediately escorted into an interview room, in which he was interviewed. I was there to ensure that he was telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

That was at about 6. He went in another room for his insurance exam, in which it is determined what level of care he could afford. I wasn't needed at that point; so, I took a seat in the waiting area. There was a lady watching TV, apparently, an all-Michael-Jackson-all-the-time station, although I couldn't see the picture.

Violating the A-Number-1 hospital rule, Dave called me with his cell phone at about 8 to tell me on my cell phone that it would be at least an hour or so until someone could read the CAT scan. The CAT scan. I didn't take his bait; after all, he did pass out, which he denied, but which I insisted the lady taking his history put in the history, as related by the three people who found him, semi-conscious, on the kitchen floor.

In the meantime, more people had filtered into the E.R. waiting room.

Is there something about sunset that triggers a rush to the E.R.? With the almost full moon hiding behind clouds and night falling upon the landscape, vampires and werewolves had obviously started to wreak their respective unique havoc upon an unsuspecting populace, their damage always being attributed to other causes by conspiratorial health care workers, who would be out of jobs if the truth were known.

Now, I stationed myself in a seat far, far away so that I could not see the TV. The way I look at it, given a choice, people will sit so they have a sight line to a TV, any TV. It is what they are accustomed to -- watching TV when they have nothing better to do, when they feel the need to anesthetize themselves, like in a strange room in a hospital waiting for bad news. The seats to my left, though, along the windowed wall, under the TV began to fill up.

Several feet to my right, in the corner, stood a machine, which looked like a console from a spaceship in a 1950's movie. It may have been an air purifier. It may have been a spaceship console from a 1950's movie on display. I did not get up to take a closer look.

A lady carrying her coughing four-year-old walked across the carpeted waiting room right toward me. She was on a mission, undeterred by two seats over by the window that beckoned to her. No, she wanted the little couch at my left hand -- she could sit with her son's head on her lap. There was no telling what diseased her child -- probably, the killer, swine flu. And she had no regard for the health of anyone else, particularly me. This is where pandemics start -- in hospital waiting rooms.

I needed air, fresh air. I jumped up from the chair and bolted out of the sliding E.R. entrance doors, holding my breath all the way, before I could become infected. An ambulance pulled around the corner to the ambulance entrance as I got outside. Then I realized that of all the people who went into the automatic doors, following a nurse, to be "treated," none had yet come out. And it was after 9 o'clock. Three hours. My friend, Dave, was still back there -- with the others.

I found a bench that faced a bank of windows, windows that had been at my back; so, I had the same view of events without the concomitant risk of deadly infection. Of course, there were the mosquitoes with their malaria, West Nile virus, Dengue and other fevers that come out at night, but that would be a minor inconvenience compared to the vampires and werewolves that might decide to hang out near the E.R. entrance.

I've read many articles in which the authors have claimed that vampires don't like hospitals all that much, but I think those writers are wrong and that nowadays most phlebotomists are closet vampires, getting their bloody fixes without having to kill anyone. It's so convenient and economical without the extreme downside.

Emergency room entrances are, however, a natural gathering-place where werewolves ply their trade, enticing accident victims to meet behind closed doors -- it is there that the werewolves do their dirty work. They are easy to spot, however. If planning to be treated in the emergency room, it is preferable to ignore everyone on the way in.

At 9:30, Dave called again, probably drawing the attention of Homeland Security. Still waiting. Another 15 minutes. The question to be answered was whether 15 minutes in physicians' reality was in any way equivalent to 15 minutes in my reality. I know that the billing by doctors reflects that they must spend about three hours worth of their time in an exam at the office; and because time flies when we're having fun, the exam seems like it lasts only about 3 or 4 minutes.

Four women climbed out of a Chevy Malibu, not the New Chevy Malibu, but the old, real old, Chevy Malibu, the one with the back bumper suspended by rusty wire. They huddled together, several arms waving overhead, in the parking lot; and two of them walked into the E.R. The other two lit up cigarettes, got back into the car, and turned up the dum-dum-dum-dum music.

Apparently, the women chose poorly; and the two who needed E.R. treatment came out of the sliding doors about a half hour later. They were arguing -- I didn't catch any of what they were saying, except for one of them saying, "That's fucked up!" twelve times on the way to the car. They got into the back seat, and the rusted brown Malibu drove away, the ladies looking for another place to score some Oxycontin.

After the rusted Malibu left the parking lot, listing severely to the right on a broken spring, I noted that parked in the E.R. parking lot across the driveway from where I sat were four SUV's and three Cadillacs and my car, the Toyota Yaris with The Who sticker on it. There must have been an explanation for such an accumulation, but I didn't have time to figure it out.

Dave walked through the sliding doors, which was one good sign, smiling, which was another good sign.

Posted by Bill at September 30, 2009 05:06 PM