Thursday night after the ER incident Jeremy and I were bickering.
"You still look terrible. Promise me you won't go to work tomorrow."
"But it's the annual soup making contest," Jeremy protested.
"Seriously? You're going to kill yourself to get to work all over a soup making contest?" I asked incredulously.
He had the gall to look sheepish. I also knew he was stubborn enough to go to work just to submit his soup. Mind you, the man makes good soup, but nothing worth making himself more sick over. But I know this man. I've been married to him for thirteen and a half years, and I know when he gets a bug up his butt, there's no changing his mind.
"Fine. If I take the soup to work for you, will you promise to stay home and make a doctor's appointment?" I asked.
He did settle on this compromise, and set about to making his soup. On Friday, I took the crock pot to his place of employment, and picked up his laptop so he could work from home. The receptionist told me he owed me a dinner. The rest of the company just looked at me if I was crazy. I didn't care. I was willing to do anything to keep him home on Friday. I stopped by his boss' office to let him know I was getting the laptop.
"I had to bargain with him to stay home. I brought his soup in."
"Yeah," his boss said as we laughed, "He was worrying about that on the way to the ER yesterday when I was taking him. Tell him I can do any follow-ups for him, and that he doesn't have to work."
"I'll tell him, but I doubt I'll be able to convince him not to work from home," I said.
When I got home, I found out the doctor wanted to schedule him for a stress test and a few other things. I also discovered his boss called him and told him not to work. Thankfully, he listened to his boss when he wouldn't listen to me. On Sunday, he was still feeling kind of lousy. I tried to talk him into staying home today. He refused. I asked him if it was because he was low on sick days. That's when I found out he has twelve, count them, TWELVE, sick days stored up. Sigh.
His soup didn't win.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
My not-so-great day
The phone call felt surreal, like out of a Dali painting, only worse. I got out of the water after teaching my classes, walked to my bag to get my change of clothes, when I heard the music chirping out of my purse. The number was Jeremy's, but not the voice.
"Hi, am I talking to Melanie?"
"Uh, yes," I answered tentatively.
"This is John Doe, Jeremy's boss. I just took him to the ER. He left his phone by accident at work. That's how I knew your number. Don't worry. He seems OK. He was having chest pain, heart palpitations, and dizziness. They took him back right away and did an EKG. Really, I think he was more embarrassed about being pushed in a wheel chair than anything."
"Oh, Ok. thanks. I'll be over there as soon as I can."
I got to the ER right at the doctor walked in to talk to Jeremy about the initial blood tests they ran.
"Your blood work is back. One of the tests we did is an indicator of blood clots. Because of your age, and family history, and symptoms, I thought looking for a clot was more probable, so we ran the test. It is a perfect indicator for a negative, meaning if you get a negative, definitely NO clot. But if it is positive, there are lots of things that can cause a positive. So we have to run more tests. In your case, your numbers were six time higher than the norm. We're going to do a CT Scan of your lungs, and then an ultrasound of your leg to make sure you don't have a pulmonary embolism."
Eeks! So I asked the very first question any mother would ask, "How long is this going to take? My kids get home from school at three o'clock. I need to know if I have to find a babysitter."
"Get a sitter."
Okey Dokie.
Calling for a sitter prompted mass-hysteria in my family and Jeremy's family. He really wanted to keep it quiet, in case it was nothing. But since my first phone call to my sister ended up in her voice mail, I had to call my father-in-law. He called Jeremy's sister. Then, my sister called me back, I told her everything I knew at that point, she called my parents.
Meanwhile, we waited in a three-person room where the curtains did nothing other than simiulate the sense of privacy. In reality, as in all curtained hospital ER rooms, every last cotton pickin' word was fodder for the other patients. In curtain number two, we had Mr-I-ODed-on-Tylenol-but-not-really-that's-just-what-I-told-the-doctors-because-I'm-too-stupid-to-realize-my-bloodwork-would-tell-the-truth. I'm not sure what he really took, but he spent the day keeled over in his bed, with a nurse sitting in a chair making sure nothing more serious happened. They woke him up a couple of times to poke an prod, and then another time to let him know that there was absolutely NO tylenol in his system but "some other very interesting substances were found" but pretty much Mr-OD was completely unobtrusive.
I wish I could say the same for the patient behind curtain number one, Wendy Whiner. She waited approximately thirty seconds after being admitted to start her whine.
"Where is the doctor? It's taking forever. No one knows anything around here."
She looked to be somewhere between 30 and 40, and ranted those very same words at least a million times, peppered with the uncreative curse. When the phlebotomist came to take her blood, she flailed, screamed, whined, and knocked over the lady's tray. To which Ms. Phlebotomy replied, "I haven't even touched you yet." And when she finally did touch Wendy, she said, "Ms. Whiner, it's going to take longer if you keep thrashing around."
I had to give ms. Phlebotomy high marks for not losing her cool.
They took Jeremy out a couple of times, once for the CT Scan, and another time for his ultrasound. The whole time, Wendy Whiner paced, ranted, raved, and cursed. She hollared out at the doctors and nurses. She even tried to coax the pharmacist to give her something to calm her down so she "wouldn't have to be restrained." (Her words, not his). But the person I pitied the most was the poor nurse who had the world's most boring job of sitting in a chair and recording vitals of Mr. OD onto a chart. Wendy didn't seem to get the idea the Bored Nurse wasn't her personal slave. Every five minutes the conversation was the same.
"Can't you just get me a doctor?" Wendy would ask.
"No, I have to sit here and watch him. I'm assigned to him, not you," said Bored Nurse every time.
"There isn't even a call button in here. Why isn't there a call button? Just go get the doctor," said Wendy.
"I can't. I'm not allowed to leave my post."
"HEY!" Wendy called out the door. "HEY YOU!"
Hey You would come in and talk to Wendy who was pacing.
"Can't you get me a doctor?"
"Just get back into bed, Wendy. He'll be here soon," Hey You said.
"Where is he?" Wendy asked
"I don't know," Hey you replied.
"Nobody around here knows NOTHING. Can I get a plate? I'm hungry. When's dinner? Do I get dinner? Where is the doctor?"
Finally after what felt like hours, torturous hours, the doctor came in to see Wendy. He agreed to give her som Adavant to help calm her down. This might have seemed like a good idea, but then she was calling out the door to Hey You to find out why she hadn't gotten her Adavant yet.
That was about the point Jeremy was discharged. He was fine. No clots. No seeming reason for the chest pain and the heart palpitations. I was more than grateful to leave. Enduring this on one Nature Valley Granola Bar that I ate at seven-thirty this morning, while bearing "swimmers' hair," well, it was all I could do to stay in one piece.
"Hi, am I talking to Melanie?"
"Uh, yes," I answered tentatively.
"This is John Doe, Jeremy's boss. I just took him to the ER. He left his phone by accident at work. That's how I knew your number. Don't worry. He seems OK. He was having chest pain, heart palpitations, and dizziness. They took him back right away and did an EKG. Really, I think he was more embarrassed about being pushed in a wheel chair than anything."
"Oh, Ok. thanks. I'll be over there as soon as I can."
I got to the ER right at the doctor walked in to talk to Jeremy about the initial blood tests they ran.
"Your blood work is back. One of the tests we did is an indicator of blood clots. Because of your age, and family history, and symptoms, I thought looking for a clot was more probable, so we ran the test. It is a perfect indicator for a negative, meaning if you get a negative, definitely NO clot. But if it is positive, there are lots of things that can cause a positive. So we have to run more tests. In your case, your numbers were six time higher than the norm. We're going to do a CT Scan of your lungs, and then an ultrasound of your leg to make sure you don't have a pulmonary embolism."
Eeks! So I asked the very first question any mother would ask, "How long is this going to take? My kids get home from school at three o'clock. I need to know if I have to find a babysitter."
"Get a sitter."
Okey Dokie.
Calling for a sitter prompted mass-hysteria in my family and Jeremy's family. He really wanted to keep it quiet, in case it was nothing. But since my first phone call to my sister ended up in her voice mail, I had to call my father-in-law. He called Jeremy's sister. Then, my sister called me back, I told her everything I knew at that point, she called my parents.
Meanwhile, we waited in a three-person room where the curtains did nothing other than simiulate the sense of privacy. In reality, as in all curtained hospital ER rooms, every last cotton pickin' word was fodder for the other patients. In curtain number two, we had Mr-I-ODed-on-Tylenol-but-not-really-that's-just-what-I-told-the-doctors-because-I'm-too-stupid-to-realize-my-bloodwork-would-tell-the-truth. I'm not sure what he really took, but he spent the day keeled over in his bed, with a nurse sitting in a chair making sure nothing more serious happened. They woke him up a couple of times to poke an prod, and then another time to let him know that there was absolutely NO tylenol in his system but "some other very interesting substances were found" but pretty much Mr-OD was completely unobtrusive.
I wish I could say the same for the patient behind curtain number one, Wendy Whiner. She waited approximately thirty seconds after being admitted to start her whine.
"Where is the doctor? It's taking forever. No one knows anything around here."
She looked to be somewhere between 30 and 40, and ranted those very same words at least a million times, peppered with the uncreative curse. When the phlebotomist came to take her blood, she flailed, screamed, whined, and knocked over the lady's tray. To which Ms. Phlebotomy replied, "I haven't even touched you yet." And when she finally did touch Wendy, she said, "Ms. Whiner, it's going to take longer if you keep thrashing around."
I had to give ms. Phlebotomy high marks for not losing her cool.
They took Jeremy out a couple of times, once for the CT Scan, and another time for his ultrasound. The whole time, Wendy Whiner paced, ranted, raved, and cursed. She hollared out at the doctors and nurses. She even tried to coax the pharmacist to give her something to calm her down so she "wouldn't have to be restrained." (Her words, not his). But the person I pitied the most was the poor nurse who had the world's most boring job of sitting in a chair and recording vitals of Mr. OD onto a chart. Wendy didn't seem to get the idea the Bored Nurse wasn't her personal slave. Every five minutes the conversation was the same.
"Can't you just get me a doctor?" Wendy would ask.
"No, I have to sit here and watch him. I'm assigned to him, not you," said Bored Nurse every time.
"There isn't even a call button in here. Why isn't there a call button? Just go get the doctor," said Wendy.
"I can't. I'm not allowed to leave my post."
"HEY!" Wendy called out the door. "HEY YOU!"
Hey You would come in and talk to Wendy who was pacing.
"Can't you get me a doctor?"
"Just get back into bed, Wendy. He'll be here soon," Hey You said.
"Where is he?" Wendy asked
"I don't know," Hey you replied.
"Nobody around here knows NOTHING. Can I get a plate? I'm hungry. When's dinner? Do I get dinner? Where is the doctor?"
Finally after what felt like hours, torturous hours, the doctor came in to see Wendy. He agreed to give her som Adavant to help calm her down. This might have seemed like a good idea, but then she was calling out the door to Hey You to find out why she hadn't gotten her Adavant yet.
That was about the point Jeremy was discharged. He was fine. No clots. No seeming reason for the chest pain and the heart palpitations. I was more than grateful to leave. Enduring this on one Nature Valley Granola Bar that I ate at seven-thirty this morning, while bearing "swimmers' hair," well, it was all I could do to stay in one piece.
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