A day at the hospital

Spending the day at the hospital is never going to be a fun experience, but today did have its moments.

Here is the background. Angie was in for another 'procedure' today. We arrived at 9:30 for a 10:00 o'clock appointment and she was scheduled for surgery at 12:00. The surgery was supposed to last about 1 -1/2 hours so she was to be in recovery before 2:00. As is normal with the normal chaos that is our lives, at 6:30 they begin the process of moving her to a room so she can spend the night. Instead of being home before dinner, we are hoping to be home before lunch tomorrow.

So, since I have so many hours to kill, what am I going to do? Well, I can't leave until she gets into her room so I have until almost 7 o' clock to kill before taking Gracie her overnight bag and then beating a path back to the room to watch Angie sleep for a while. I don't have many options for entertainment so I settle on updating facebook regularly and watching the other folks who are populating the waiting room. Ah people watching, my favorite sport....

After Angie goes back I slide down to the cafeteria for a quick change of scenery and 1/2 cup of the worst scrambled eggs I have ever come across in life. I mean seriously people, how do you make scrambled eggs so tasteless , what is the trick with that ? While questioning from what foul these eggs were commandeered from, a young lady comes walking into the atrium. Now, let me paint the picture for you, I am alone in a room with about 15 tables. This room is off to the side and away from the main dinning area. I am perched up against a wall with my laptop out and my faux eggs minding my own business when a young blond lady walks into the room. She reminds me of Red Fox , or to be more accurate, she reminds me of Fred Sanford. She comes in holding her shoulder and neck and staggering around a bit. She walks to one edge of the room and grabs her shoulder and moans, well yells a moaning type sound. She then walks back across in front of me to the other edge of the room and has another yelling moaning episode. She then walks over to the table one away from mine, right in front of me and from a standing position lays her forehead on the table and lets out more yelling, sobbing moans. Over dramatic does not even touch this one as a description. I am sitting there debating what to do, I am thinking I should ask her if she requires any help but am not sure what to say. I start running over options in my head to try out what they sound like.

1. " what is wrong with you " ( nope, no way to make that sound good )
2. " do you need some help of some kind ?" ( nope, that's even worse than the first one )
3. " Miss, is there something I can help you with ?" ( closer, but still crass sounding )
4. " Is your name Sally ? and if so, were is Harry and have you two met yet " ( uh, no )
5. " Ma'am, can I be of some help to you ?" ( still a bit awkward, but passable )

Just as I had worked out what to say she turns to me before I have had a chance to speak and she starts talking. I think she was tired of waiting for me to process everything, but I wanted to be cautious not to seem a flirt, or seem a curmudgeon so I wanted to process things first, I guess she didnt have the patients for that, anyway, she starts.

" Oh, I am sorry, I am sorry, I don't usually cry in front of people ( cry, cry !! your yelping like a wounded water buffalo during peak mating season ) I didn't know what they were gonna do to take that x-ray. It just hurts, it really really hurts. Can I ask you something, I have asked like 30 people already and they all said no and I know you will say no too but they just wouldn't listen, would you listen to me please, my son is trying to raise money for a school fundraiser and they have all this neat stuff in here, if you would just look through it I would appreciated it, do you mind if I go get a cup of coffee, I'll be right back., oh it hurts , it really really hurts, I don't mean to talk so much I just talk when I am in pain and OHHHHH, I 'm sorry sorry sorry, I'm gonna get a cup of coffee and , I , they told me no caffeine with the pain meds, but, I'll be right back, do you mind if I get a cup of coffee? "

Now, she is gone for a few minutes, while she is gone I would like to point out that the entire above spoken paragraph was said in about one breath, maybe two but that would only be due to the brief pause to add more theatrics. To shorten this up, my friend is 29, has two children, thinks her neck is broken, and is hocking stuff in the hospital dinning room. While she is gone I here an intercom message come across about a clean up in front of the coffee shop. Yep, you guessed it, she spilled the first cup of coffee, too much pain to carry hot coffee with shaking and spilling it. We talked a little , we talked about church and she was going to take Angie's name to her prayer group tonight, I bought a bookmark and donated it to one of her prayer group friends, and she moved on to another table in the other dining room. Well, its 10:15 AM right now, this is going to be an interesting day at this pace.

Back to the waiting room I go. Nothing left to do but people watch.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes you just really can't tell who is who and how old people are. For example, two ladies and a toddler, oh, 3 years old max would be my guess. You look at the two women and think, okay, the younger, relatively attractive one, the one who looks like she showered this morning must be mom, and the older one who showers every spring whether she needs to or not over there looking haggard and grumpy, thats grandma. But when it comes time for the patient to go back and both mom and grandma start addressing the toddler in third person, you are reminded not to judge, and please dont guess, because this isnt one you want to get wrong out loud. " grandma will be right back, just stay here with momma ?" Yikes,,,,


You look around and put people with people sometimes because you have nothing else to do. The next group is what I call ," the herd ". If you have spent any time at all in hospital waiting facilities, you have seen some variant of , " the herd " . Today's herd would be what I would call the redneck herd, or perhaps the , " larry the cable guy " herd. The herd is what happens when just a few too many people decide its a good idea to hang out all day at the hospital. One is lonely, two is company, three is getting to be a crowd, 18 is a herd. This group had about 4 women who I would call, tired looking, if you know what I mean. Then there were about 8 men there and oh I am guessing about 6 or so kids running loose barefoot around the place. The men all look the same in a way. They are the kind of men who sit around and belittle each others deer stands and poke fun at each others Bass Boats. These are the kind of men that if you say " Dale Earnhardt " within their earshot, they all take off their hats and place them over their hearts. Yes, they all had hats, that is how I could tell them apart, Mr. Budweiser frog hat was proud of his Ranger Bass boat and Mr. John Deere hat was proud of his deer stand. Mr. Bass Pro Shoppe was proud of the fact that he could stand today after all he drank last night. Mr. Built Ford Tough hat was proud of his truck , and Mr. Chevy Nascar hat was just as proud as he could be of his new teeth. He didn't say, but after seeing his little missus, I think I know what happened to his old teeth. As the group got up to depart I heard Mrs. John Deere hat say, " grab you youngen and com'mon, we need to get up to you maw's room now. Ah, what good boys they are....

While driving back and forth between the hospital and taking care of Gracie's supplies I passed through Turtlecreek Township. I noticed that there was no creek, I didn't even see a town, and I didn't run across even one single turtle. I also passed a street called Circle Drive. It was a dead end street. Well, that is how I spent most of my day today....


It is now after 11 and I think I may try to sleep a little...

good night....