Saturday was a busy day, we all had some fun on my Wii (Rock Band and Boom Blox), we played some street hockey in which my nephews once again felt the unforgiving wrath of their Uncle John as he totally and systematically destroyed their defense and piled on the goals without mercy.  I won (again) 53 to 38, and they were two on one! Yeah, I know I’m good, but what can I say… I’m a natural…  What? How old? Why they are 13 and 11… but that doesn’t mean anything! Have you seen kids nowadays?!?  They’re HUGE. My oldest nephew wears bigger sized shoes than I do! And you know what they say about a man with big feet… They wear BIG shoes! Let’s keep it clean folks!

So everything was going typically well, it was around 11 pm when things went south. My sis and brother-in-law were packing up the minivan to head back early the next day while everyone else was playing some cards and winding down after another great meal. Kudos to Mom and Dad who outdid themselves again! Check out some of the yummy food they laid out:

Mmmm... Look at that turkey. It was as good as it looks!	My plate...or I should say, one of my plates!
Apple, Cherry and Pumpkin pies!	Rollie-Pollies, a decadent recipe made of pie crust and brown sugar!

Colby, their dog, was out with my bro-in-law while he packed the car, when suddenly Colby bolts out towards the street after a couple strangers that were out taking a walk.  My bro-in-law reacted and spun to chase after the dog… but didn’t see the traveling bag he had placed on the ground.  He ended up landing hard on his left shoulder.  We walks into the kitchen, clutching his arm saying he can’t feel his fingers and arm, but his shoulder is in intense pain.

Luckily, my bro’s new girlfriend used to be a nurse and checked him out.  She thought we should get to a hospital to make sure everything was OK as she thought that his arm or shoulder could be broken!  So off we go, my Dad, my bro-in-law and me to the local hospital on Thanksgiving night, it being close to midnight.  We arrived at the hospital around 15 past midnight, and after a series of quick examinations followed by a couple hours waiting time, they recommended he get X-rays.  So we had to wait for the X-ray technician.  It was now 3 am. He got his X-rays and hobbled back to his waiting room for the doctor to give his diagnosis on the X-rays taken.  That took another 2 hours.  It was now 5 am.

Finally, the doctor came back and explained the situation to my bro-in-law:  his shoulder was broken… in two places!  No wonder he was in pain!  The doctor then advised him to go home and relax until they got into contact with a surgeon to evaluate how to proceed.  The problem was my bro-in-law had one clean fracture and another fracture that had detached a tendon.  They weren’t sure if the fracture would mend and the tendon would fuse back to the bone properly and needed the surgeons opinion.  My bro-in-law explained that he was leaving for Toronto in one hour and would have to pursue the matter when he got home.

And that’s what he did.  We drove home from the hospital and got back to my parents house around 6:30 am on the Sunday.  What an exhausting night.  My Dad and I were completely pooped out.  My bro-in-law, with his arm in a sling, climbed into his packed car with my sis and their two kids, and they left for Toronto.

Mind you, all this happened about a month ago now, so I can update you on his situation.  He was re-evaluated that Sunday afternoon in a Toronto area hospital and they ruled against surgery.  He was, and still is, under observation on a weekly basis.  Both fractures, and the tendon, seem to be healing OK, which is welcome news.  One thing I haven’t told you about my bro-in-law is that his job requires him to be on the road a large amount of the time.  And , yes folks, the day after they got home from the Thanksgiving trip, my crazy, yet dedicated, bro-in-law went on a road trip for his job!  He didn’t drive of course, but still, the guys got guts right?  Snaps his shoulder in two places and he’s out cutting deals with clients less than 48 hours later!

What a guy!  Hats off to you Mr. Bro-in-Law!  And that was our Thanksgiving 2008!

Thanks for reading.

Related posts:

1. A Day Outside
2. Birthdays & Mother’s Day Weekend Extravaganza!
3. Goodbye Fall, Hello White Sh… Stuff

We are feeling fine and doing great, but my wallet isn’t.  Yesterday in the mail, we got our ambulance transportation fee.  It was for $216.00.  :shock:  For a 10 minute ride?!!?  They didn’t even put on the freaking siren!!! Hello! Remember us?!? The Jack and Jill medics? We’ll here’s our little way of saying “Thanks for riding along!!”.  So that clears one thing up folks: they didn’t do any prostate exams while I was in the hospital anymore, because it is now clear to me that they wait a few weeks, and stick it to you at home through the mail. Is it the gas? How much does it cost to gas up an ambulance?  Are they running on freaking caviar and Cristal?  Jack and Jill we’re a little hefty… Am I paying their lunch bill as well?  So 62 tacos is an ideal lunch for a portly pair of paramedics? Did I pass out and miss the buffet stop during the ride?!?

Mind you, the fee is a combined amount for both Melissa and I, but for a hundred bucks they could have at least managed to let me lie down in the damn ambulance.  If you remember the situation, I was fighting back a puke attack due to me bouncing up and down on the ambulance’s trampoline/chair!  My vital fluids are everywhere but where they should be, and they give me a seat in the Cirque du Soleil!  I guess it’s that attention to detail that drove the price up folks.

I’m just ranting here folks, but I feel better now!  I might rant off again in a few days, because if the ambulance wasn’t free, then the hospital stay sure as heck won’t be!  Stripper nurses don’t come cheap you know! Right guys?!? Huh?!?! Guys?!?! Right?!?! Hmm… yeah…

Sam’s Big Gift is turning out to be one of those gifts that keeps on giving!

Related posts:

1. Sam’s Big Gift: Part 3
2. Sam’s Big Gift: Part 4 (Conclusion)
3. Bath Time!

And now for the rest of the story…

After my episode with the needle from Hell, nurse Sandi (not her real name) let me rest up a bit before “The Big Move”.  The nurses now deemed us self sufficient enough to be placed into an observation room, away from the crazy happenings of the triage hallway/cot area.   This was a welcome change, even though it took them 20 minutes of tugging and pushing my stretcher around the tight hallways of the hospital, before settling on a room that could fit both my stretcher and Melissa’s.  They would put me in one ammonia smelling room only to come fetch me three minutes later to park me in a bio-waste smelling room.  Just as Sandi pushed me into that nasty second room, an orderly came by and said that he hadn’t cleaned that room yet hence the smell of the previous occupant lingering in the air. Nice.  Now I had a throat full of bile and a nose full of sh*t.

So off we went for another session of musical chairs, this time landing me in a room with an 80 year old lady.  Sandi apparently thought that this lady, who was two and a half times my age and had a belly button between her boobs, was my wife.  Sigh… Enter nurse Mandi (never saw nurse Sandi again) who whisked me away yet again, away from my geriatric roommate to finally bring me to the last room I would visit in this hospital.  Mandi pushed me into the double sized room and assured me Melissa was on her way and considering how the last 20 minutes went, I hardly believed her.  But then, a noise found itself to my ear.  It was low a first, almost an unpleasant, incomprehensible buzz that quickly grew louder into a jabbering of words being rapidly and enthusiastically exchanged.  Words in the voice of Melissa and her sister chatting away as they approached the room.  Happy to see Melissa for the first time since we left the ambulance a few hours earlier, I greeted her with a blown kiss.  She smiled too, happy to be back together.

Myriam, Melissa’s sister, brought our bags to the door of the room and repeated a routine she must have done a hundred and sixty times that day: throw on a visitor’s gown and put on rubber gloves.  You see, Melissa and I were in “quarantine” due to the unknown nature of our illness.  So Myriam had no choice but to put on and take off, every time she stepped from or into the room, her gown and gloves.  Even back in the triage area, she had to change when she went between our cots. An annoying precaution to be sure, but to this day she hasn’t been sick!  Myriam was a great help to us and we were thankful that she was there as we are not sure what we would’ve done without her.

The IVs in our arms gave us much needed strength and by 5:30 P.M. our stomachs were growling, which we took as a good sign.  Supper came and Melissa started eating carefully, not fully trusting her bowels.  I was still having dizzy spells and feeling weak, but my stomach wanted food, and really folks, who am I to ignore what my stomach wants?!?!  I was having trouble sitting up close to my plate to get some carrot cubes into my mouth, so Myriam actually fed me some spoonfuls.  What are sister-in-laws for eh?  If I had any pride left, it was now gone at the expense of an empty, cramped and hungry belly.

Shortly after, around 7:30 P.M., Mandi walked in and told us that our blood tests came back negative and that we most likely had suffered from a form of severe gastroenteritis.  It was viral and not a case of food poisoning.  This conclusion was supported by the fact that no one else we knew got sick from anything we had eaten with them, including my parents and their friends who we’d dined with on Sunday.

She also let drop that pending the doctors approval, and if our meals “stayed down”, we could then leave.  That was welcome news because as you know, there’s no place like home and this hospital gown was itching my butt so bad!  It had been a long day and we just wanted to get back home and see how Sammy was doing.  We missed him terribly.

Now that we knew what they thought we had, we were busting our brains trying to figure out where we got it.  I couldn’t remember licking any toilet bowls and Melissa’s a pretty clean girl… So where? How?  Well, figuring something like that out is like finding WMDs: near impossible.  Before we knew it, doctor Brandi came in, gave us the once over with a poke here and a prod there, and told us to go home.  Needless to say, we were all smiles… maybe a little worried about actually, physically getting to the car… but smiling none-the-less!   So after sliding off the bed, going for a quick bathroom break in a chair/toilet thing (I will spare the details on that), we got dressed and headed for that blessed fresh air!  We were free, after what felt like three days, we were now actually walking out the door to our car’s parking spot… which was empty!

Stolen!

Just kidding folks!  The car was fine… and thank goodness too.  I think that would have been the last straw.  I would’ve had a rampage and the next mornings news paper headline would have read: “Man kills half the hospital with used colonostemy bag”.  In all seriousness, we got home nice and safely to see Sam sleeping soundly and my Dad reporting an easy time of babysitting.  We let him know that what we had was viral, so he could get it by touching us or something we touched.  He said it wasn’t a problem as he washed his hands frequently while going about his business in the house.  We thanked him and Myriam profusely for their help and they went on their separate ways, deserving of a good nights sleep after a crazy long day.

That night, we slept great.

We’ve been recovering ever since and barring a little diarrhea from Sam, we’ve completely recovered.  That, however, can’t be said for my Dad.  He fell ill two days after our parting with the same symptoms we had.  He’s doing fine now, but he had one nasty night and a very unsteady day as well.  Hearing this news, it dawned on Melissa and I that the only common factor tying her, my Dad and me to the sickness was…  Sam.  On the previous Saturday, Sam threw up on Melissa and I (see Part 1) and he’d been having wet poops ever since.  Two days later, we got sick.  My Dad, being the loving Grandpa that he is, kissed and hugged Sam while he babysat him the day we were in the hospital.  He only washed his hands after he touched our stuff and not after he handled Sam.  Again, two days later, he got sick.  It’s so simple to see now!

So, folks, It might have been obvious to you from the start… or not.  But now that you’ve followed us through our journey into the unknown filled with nursery rhyme paramedics (Jack & Jill), stripper nurses (Candi, Bambi, Mandi, Sandi and Brandi), killer needles, carrot cubes and an abundance of bodily fluids (both ingested and expunged)… You now know the full extent of: Sam’s Big Gift!

That’s it for now folks, hope you enjoyed it.

Thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. Sam’s Big Gift: Part 2
2. Sam’s Big Gift: Part 3
3. Sam’s Big Gift: Part 1

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:

1. Sam’s Big Gift: Epilogue
2. Sam’s Big Gift: Part 2
3. Sam’s Big Gift: Part 4 (Conclusion)