At 2:30 this morning an electrician with dreadlocks and I were taking eye tests with the chart on the wall. Did you know 20/20 is not the best vision? Apparently not, because if you can read two lines down (even smaller print) you are 20/10. We did not know that.
I also didn’t know an ER room could go so long without cleaning. There was a layer of grime on the waste baskets, bed controls and certainly the floor. I kept my hands in my pockets and used hand cleaner frequently.
While the electrician with the eye problem and I entertained ourselves in the hall, my poor son waited for relief from his back pain. He has had therapy since his bad automobile accident a few months ago, but physical work yesterday erased all that apparently. So with endless re-runs of “Earl” and “Sex in the City” on the TV, I alternately rubbed his back and exercised my legs and feet—well, as much as I could without touching walls or anything. We were there for five hours, from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. My tote of magazines helped for a while, but articles started looking familiar.
While my son did paper work earlier I discovered that many in the waiting room were just there to see their 70 year-old-grandmother who was experiencing her first heart attack. My son wanted to know how I knew what was going on with people. Simple. We talk.
Going back in the night even earlier, I spied my son in a chair just inside the door of the ER waiting room, but had to go through security check before entering. No one was doing checks, so I finally sat down. When the policeman returned I got up and put my tote bag on the table as well as my purse. I was asked to open the tote, which I did. He shined a flashlight on the reading material and OK’d it. I raised my arms facing, then not facing while the wand waved past my body. Cleared. That was a relief since I had a pop-out razor on my keychain (in purse), a nail clipper and serrated defensive flashlight in the tote. One patient did have to take his pocket knife back to his car before entering, but that had been in his pocket. He should have had a man purse – or not.
The challenge when my son was released was finding an open pharmacy at 3 a.m. There were none within ten miles of the hospital. My son stopped at one near his home in a neighboring town on the way home. There are a lot of things wrong with the health care system and cracks are beginning to show even more. Apparently hospitals are cutting back on cleaning (if this one is representative), we never saw a doctor, only nurse, and you still can’t easily fill a prescription at 3 a.m. Don’t get sick and stay out of accidents, people.
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