Sam’s Big Gift: Part 3
If you haven’t done it yet, I recommend you read Sam’s Big Gift Part 1 and Part 2 before proceeding. It’ll put things into context for you and help you avoid brain cramping questions like: “Why is he wearing socks and sandals in a hospital with Jack & Jill ?”.
Moving right along…
The ambulance pulled into the hospital around 11 A.M. and Jill asked me to get out of the ambulance first. Now this meant I had to cram myself between Melissa’s stretcher and Jill’s prominent bodily presence. Jill was sitting and I had to bend over because of the low ceiling, which in terrific ice-breaking combination, lined her face up with my sweaty pyjama-pant ass. Nice. Talk about getting to know someone in a hurry. 
I kept thinking “Squeeze the cheeks and don’t fart!”. If Jill calls us up in a couple days and says that she caught what we had – well folks, THAT was the point of transmission!
So out I went into what I was hoping would be a stretcher of my own. Too bad for me, cause a wheelchair was all they had waiting. Great! Another freaking seat! No beds in this damn hospital! 
They gently lowered Melissa out of the ambulance and wheeled us into the triage area. I slouched as low as I could go in the wheelchair which put my knees about even with my forehead… Sexy I know, but I needed to get horizontal and the building full of medical experts couldn’t figure that out. We spent what seemed to be four hours waiting for our turn, but it was probably more like 15 minutes. Melissa and Jill were still chatting like pledge sisters while Jack and I were quiet. I wasn’t in the mood to talk and Jack was checking out the nurses PHD’s. That’s their asses folks, not their diplomas… PHD means Pretty Heavy Dumper. It’s finally our turn and we meet a new nurse that we’ll call Bambi. Why? Just because we had so many nurses attend to us that I couldn’t remember any of their names. So I’ll give them stripper names, cause everybody remembers a stripper’s name. Right? Huh guys? Are ya with me on this?!? Riiiight, so anyways, back to Bambi in the triage.
Jack and Jill relay their information to Bambi and she gets up and checks our necks for stiffness. Doesn’t say why or what she’s looking for. I quickly found out that nurses tend to do that alot. They just grab you and fiddle with you to their amusement then write down a little scribble on their clipboard and walk away. Doctors explain a lot more, which is, you know, a nice feature for a human to have: communication. It helps the credibility along a bit. Bambi then assigned us cot numbers in the hallway. Yep the hallway. It’s actually not as bad as it sounds. The hallway was more of a large curved and narrow room with curtains set up to separate the patients from the traffic and general din of the area. But screw the room description folks, I was getting a cot! A bed! I was pleased.
Jack and Jill carted us to our cots, helped us get into them and bid us good luck and farewell. Melissa
and I were separated by one cot, so while we couldn’t see each other, we could hear each other. Melissa’s sister Myriam arrived at this point and brought in some of our personal belongings. I got into my super stylish blue hospital gown (with my awesome black socks) and laid down for a little sleep. Wrong again! While the curtain did ensure some privacy, the noise factor was more disturbing than I had anticipated. But I digress, it’s a hospital dumping ground for sick people. Coughing, hacking, puking, crying, whining, talking, shouting, yelping, farting, burping and other noises I wasn’t able to identify were all clearly ringing in my ears. I can’t tell you how long we were there, but I do know that Melissa got her hydrating IV first and mine came a little while after.
I don’t know if I’ve said this before but, I am not a needle person. Notice the bolding of that last sentence? That’s cause I’m serious. I hate ‘em. And an IV is essentially a large plastic needle shove into your vein. Nice. Nurse Candi (strippers remember?) comes over to plug me in. I tell her right off the bat: “I don’t like needles. Lay me back all the way or you’re gonna be picking 200 pounds of irish off the floor.” So Candi complied, lowered the head of the bed and proceeded to stick me with the biggest needle EVER. It didn’t go well. Already in my weakened state, I started to lose it. I was sweating profusely and withering in my cot, ignoring the instructions Candi was giving me because… well I couldn’t freaking hear her anymore! There was only this loud buzzing sound. I couldn’t even see Candi anymore either, as black spots where taking over my vision. I was done for. I felt like I was going to explode. Actually, I guess I did because when I woke up, my barf bag had filled itself. Stupid freaking needles. Melissa was completly fine by the way. Chatting away with her sister. Yay. For. Her.
About 15 minutes later, Sandi showed up (never saw Candi again) to tell me they were moving us to an observation room until we had our blood test results and our clearance to leave. Leave! I felt like I’d just died and now they wanted my pale ass out the door! Little did I know, which seemed to be the current theme that day, we weren’t even half way done with our day at the hospital.
But don’t worry folks, I am almost done with this story. Surf back over at the beginning of the week, for the super-exciting-awesome-blockbuster-batman-thrilling-stupendous ending to: Sam’s Big Gift!
Take care, and thanks for laughing (hopefully)
Related posts: