Andrea finally conceded she was too ill to wait until an urgent care center opened in the morning, so at 11 o’clock Wednesday night I took her to the emergency room at OSU. We’re still both recuperating from the ensuing seven-hour ordeal. She began feeling bad a little after getting back from walking Layla to the bank around 4 p.m. At first, she thought a cold had come on suddenly, but soon she was experiencing chills, high fever, rapid dehydration, joint aches and stomach pains. She had a brief respite after taking some Tylenol with chicken soup, but the symptoms all came roaring back. We got to OSU a bit before 11:30. I dropped Andrea off and a security guard offered her a wheelchair and took her inside the ER while I parked the car. After Andrea was “triaged” and had a blood sample taken, we were told to a wait in a corridor, which we did. For four awful hours. Andrea was feeling worse and worse, and growing more and more frightened. I kept asking passing medical personnel how long before she could see someone, but they are highly trained in the art of being vague. It finally occurred to me, as she was becoming increasingly distressed with the wait, that in my rush to be by her inside the emergency room, I had neglected to flash our insurance card at the front desk. When I got back to her side after doing so, a nurse type person was there getting registration information. It was still another hour before she was taken to a room, where an IV to relieve her pain, soothe her stomach and replace fluids soon had her feeling, if not her best, remarkably improved. The clock in my car read 6:30 as I was driving her home. By that point, I had been up 25 hours straight, but with all the writing that needed to be done there was no point in trying to get even a few hours of sleep. Andrea managed to rest much of the rest of the day while I churned out story after story. All we know for sure at this point is: she didn’t have the flu (they took a swab late in the proceedings) and this is surely going to cost a lot of money.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 16:40:12 +0000
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