The other day I woke with some mild chest pain. I got up, took an aspirin and a fish oil pill and went and walked my 2.5 miles, figuring that if it was a heart attack we might as well get on with it. The walk was no problem and the pain had minimized so I went about the routine of the day. But it kept returning in small but noticeable doses until I determined at noon to go get some peace of mind.
I called KM, who picked me up at work. We decided on Baptist because they had been my first choice ever since that time my immune system decided out of the blue that penicillin was the enemy. But that’s another tale.
We arrived at the hospital, parked and followed the sidewalk, coming to doors and a sign above that read “Emergency Room/Chest Pain Center.”
Must be common if they have a special center for it, I thought.
Inside, the waiting room was full. I stood there expecting someone to come over like I was some sort of VIP. When that didn’t happen I asked the triage nurse what to do. He told me to have a seat at a check-in table.
Also waiting was a young guy who had something in his eyes that was causing him a lot of pain. Then a group from a church came in with their minister, who had collapsed while at work. Next came an elderly lady. Her eye looked like she’d sparred a few rounds with Laila Ali.
I looked at the TV, where ABC News was reporting about the Arkansas woman who got a scare when she realized there was a snake in her car after a trip to the grocery store.
Kelly Swisher was en route to complete some errands when a 4-foot-long rat snake fell from her dashboard and onto her feet while she was driving on the highway.
“As soon as it landed on my feet, I felt it,” she told ABC. “It was rough and scaly. As it slithered across my feet, it was the nail-on-a-chalkboard kind of thing.”
The triage nurse called me and I gave him more information. He asked me what number my pain was, between 1 and 10. There wasn’t any pain, and I felt guilty being there, so I said “2,” as if it were a question. “You don’t win anything,” he said.
After taking some of my blood, they led KM and me back to one of the rooms. I was given an “open-back” robe and put it on. Rob, the nurse, hooked me up to the EKG and left. Jerry Springer was on the TV, but thankfully KM turned to Turner Classic Movies, where “Me and My Gal,” with Judy Garland and Gene Kelly was coming on. About every 15 minutes the machine took my blood pressure, which was normal.
Hours later, I made KM go get herself something to eat. I was about thirty minutes into “In the Good Old Summertime,” also with Judy Garland, when the doctor at last showed up. As he talked I guess he saw my eyes darting from him back to Judy, because he turned her off. That’s when we decided I needed “The Purple Pill.” He said he would write a prescription. 30 minutes later I was walking out through the ER, which was refilled with new faces. Illness, real or imagined, is relentless.
Outside, the first week of summer was hot, just as the last week of spring had been. KM was waiting and asked if I wanted to go get the prescription filled.
“No, I’ll have a chili dog.”
“Some people never learn,” she said.
Jay Edwards is editor-in-chief of the Hamilton County Herald and an award-winning columnist. Contact him at jedwards@dailydata.com.