finishing the day the way i'd planned

"Um... isn't that one of the sticky pads used for an EKG?"

 

Yes, it is. That and another one was still stuck to me after the orderly rolled me in a wheelchair to my car.

 

"An orderly?! You mean, like at a hospital? And why did they release you to your Subaru instead of to your brother or someone?"

 

Yes, an orderly, St. Joseph's Hospital, where I've been since yesterday afternoon. My PCP over at the Savannah VA sent me to the Emergency Room so they could do bloodwork and an ultrasound to check out my spleen. Those departments were already closed after 2 PM at the VA center.

So, to St. Joseph's I went, explaining what was needed. Instead, the on-call doctor (Dr. Salas) at the hospital mistakenly thought I was having a heart attack, even though none of the symptoms said that. Yet another case of someone looking at my weight and thinking the wrong thing. They did an EKG, a chest X-ray, and an MRI of pelvis and abdomen, as well as the blood draw. None of those, by the way, came back with any problems. 

Nonetheless, after keeping me NPO since my arrival at 4 PM, in case she thought my chest needed to be ripped open, she finally decided to check me out of the ER exam room and into a hospital room about 10:30 PM. And that was a shared room, so the woman in there was asleep when they wheeled me in. Such a nightmare.

I objected, of course, as I had plans for today, but they didn't listen.

 

"Oh, no! This was the day of luncheon at The Pirates' House with Sisters of Faith, wasn't it? With the trolley ride after? That you'd paid $50 for as part of your bday68 gift to yourself. Oh, no. Were you out in time for that?"

Oh, no. My lunch meal at the hospital, eventually, was a good one, a meal suitable for Thanksgiving, too. But I didn't get that until after 1 PM. No breakfast, nothing since the deli machine roast beef sandwich on white bread that an ER nurse gave me before shuttling me upstairs. (Sigh.) I woke up this morning to a cardiac stress test, as the new doc (Dr. Rice) was following along on that wrong trail, too. Anyway, that meant lying on a hard plastic table for the CT scan before the chemically-induced stress test, then lying back on that rigid surface for a post-test CT scan. I felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to my kidneys.

Dr. William Crosland, the cardiac surgeon who'd actually seen me briefly back in 2022 (before I became Dr. Cobb's patient) came in and pronounced me good to go. Well, kinda sorta. He wanted to have an ultrasound of my heart, just to be on the safe side. The two techs - one with experience, one a student - did that after my turkey and dressing. That came out fine, too. I kept telling them my heart was good. Apparently, so was my spleen. All they found was a "mild urinary tract infection".

I kid you not.

 

"I still don't understand why they realized you on your own today."

 

Because I asked. Nurse Jane had me call Smitty and Mary to come for me, and I asked her why I couldn't just drive myself home. After all, I'd not had a single drop or milligram of any opioid drugs, so I was fully cognizant. So, she asked and they okayed it! I called my brother and told him they were letting me drive myself, so no need for him to make the trip. That was good for both of us! That meant he wouldn't have to make a second trip to help me fetch my car.

"Good deal! I'm so glad you asked about that!"

 

Me, too. I phoned him, Tony, and Christina when I got to my car. Then I bopped over to the AMC. See, on Tuesday, I'd booked the Thursday, 2 PM, first screening of "The Mandalorian and Grogu", in 3-D Big-D, along with a kidpack, with a bottle of water and Junior Mints. That snack was free to me, as it made use of my AMC Reward points, plus a gift card from AARP.  

As I wasn't released from St. Joseph until just before 5 PM, that meant my reserved kidpack had been sitting on the rack, waiting for me, for 3 hours. My choice was to go and retrieve it or just kiss goodbye to that money, too, as I'd been forced to do for The Pirates' House luncheon. I was not willing to do that. 

 

"I understand."

Plus, I had an American Legion meeting to get to. This one was just for Post 36, my post, and I felt I had to be there. Something to eat and drink would be a good thing. As it was, just Doug and I showed up. He had his dog, Sam, there, too. We were the only people there until the Marines started showing up for their 7 PM meeting. Really nice to see them wearing their dress red jackets! I even talked to a couple of them, then ducked out. It's been a long couple of days, and nights, mostly in a 68 F environment, and I wanted to go home and get back into normalcy.

 

"I know what that means: the CBS line-up, with 'George & Mandy' and 'Ghosts', and "Elsbeth', right?"

 

Right. Nothing like being in a hospital to make a person exhausted. I look forward to being back in my warm little house, in my warm bed, tonight. Can you believe I had four "blankets" on my hospital bed and was still freezing? Just craziness.

 

"Well, you sleep well tonight, dear. You need that."

 

Thanks. Tomorrow is another day. I am thankful about one thing. Remember that I'd called Dr. Whipple's office about my leg still bothering me and my concern that the inguinal hernia was back? Well, I did, last week. This afternoon, about 2 PM, his office had called to talk about that. They were thrilled to find out that an MRI of my pelvis and abdomen had been run yesterday. That meant they wouldn't have to wait to order a new one, they could simply look at that one! That's one less doctor appointment for me.

 

"And you also know now that nothing bad was found with your heart or anything south of it. That's a pretty good birthday gift from the Universe."

 

Yes, you're right.

There are no accidents. 

i thank You, God.