It was the Spring of 2006. I had spent much of January, February, and March planning for a free trip to Europe using massive airline points that I had accumulated for free business travel, as I was employed as a field auditor. My girlfriend at that time and I were booked to fly-out May 1, 2006 for a 2 week Eurorail, Rome, to Florence, to Venice, to Frankfurt, to Amsterdamn visit, all mainly using free ailine miles and hotel credits, I was such a happy camper. Plus, I was getting ready to celebrate which I thought was going to be a major correction, as the last quarter of 2005 and a dip in GDP and the first quarter of 2006’s news was about to be released in late April/early May 2006. I was crossing my fingers on a second dip in GDP, something which I thought was inevitable to happen, then I could afford to finally maybe purchase some real estate, thank God, I quietly thought to myself. Then April 16, 2006, my girlfriends nephew was found at the bottom of a pool. He died, and the funeral was, first, held out of state, then another was scheduled the last weekend before May, just a couple days before we were to fly. During this very same time, many latinos started marching around Los Angeles. I remember, because my job took me all over Los Angeles and Southern California everyday and in different cities with LA. Anyways, I was shocked at the thousands of people marching on the street protesting, I forget what, I think immigration/wage type issues, and I remember how glad I was that people were peacefully protesting by marching, sometimes getting caught in red walk signals causing a bit of traffic congestion, to me it was like being in a movie, so I really much enjoyed witnessing the event. I remember that the protest started affecting the airport also during this time in mid April 2006, and I was hoping that wouldn’t cause concern for my May 1 departure. The protests continued throughout the end of April/early May 2006, and to closer the protests and funeral got to my departure date, I became a bit anxious and decided it would be best to cancel the entire trip, so I did so the very day before we were to travel. It took me almost an entire day to write letters to cancel and request some return of prepaid deposits. I thought to myself, well, maybe I could instead sell everything and use that and some savings to put on a home later in the year or the next, as I was sure there were about to announce a recession, or a 2nd consecutive dip in GDP for a quarter. Well, that didn’t happen, so….I just wanted to share some old memories. I started writing this because of the significance of the date, April 16 in my life and especially the life of others. There are many coincidences that I’ve witnessed occur on this date, both in my life and a friends life. I’ll have to get into this later, but in my opinion, that date is a day taken advantage of by many ruthless people. It all started on April 16, 1987. My future to be girlfriend (which I met in March 1995) was a passenger on a motorcycle which got struck by a drunken driver at a high rate of speed. She went flying 20-30 yards into a tree and had multiple skull and leg compound fractures, so bad they wanted to amputate her leg. After 18 surgery’s over a period of almost 20 years, she recovered from her injury to a certain extent. Anyways, I just find this very strange that she got struck by a car on this day, and I don’t remember what happened to the drunk driver or whether there was an investigation even performed, which I believe would have been a good idea. So, that’s a horrible day for me, because like I said above, her nephew died on this day, so that really makes me trip. And another thing that is coincidental is that I get laid-off/terminated from a company on this very day once long ago in the past. And even stranger, a few months later in August 2006, this same very person who got into the April 16th motorcycle accident, she almost died of a mysterious pneumonia, so bad that I had to force her to go to the doctor on a Monday, and I would be home early to help her get her meds, to my surprise, the doctor only prescribed echinace, cough syrup, and vitamin C. We tried this for a couple of days, and she wouldn’t get better, so I decided to drive her to the doctor, again, a couple days later on Wednesday. The doctor put a device on her finger and came to the conclusion that she had low oxygen count in her bloodstream, then he wanted to schedule an appointment for x-rays, at which I refused and stated that I would rather take a more rapid approach and take her to the ER room which could order x-rays on a more quick approach, so he agreed. During the beginning of the ordeal, that very Wednesday night, a different emergency doctor arrived for his shift. He looked at my girlfriend and freaked-out and stated that she needed to immediately be placed on a respirator and that I had to vacate the room, as they needed to prepare her for transport into the ICU, a room of which she became the most critical patient in that hospital at the end of August 2006 – mid September 2006. It was a horrible ordeal. In my opinion, the hospital was trying to take her life, as they became very concerned, because they couldn’t diagnose whether her pneumonia was bacterial or viral based. I believe that the hospital became paniced when she arrived, as a very similar situation had occurred at the hospital’s sister hospital up north in Vallejo, CA a few years earlier when a very similar patient came into the hospital with the very same symptoms, which turned out to be SARS, which took-out about 12-15 patients and employees within a few days. Sorry to share such a horrible memory, but I believe that if I wouldn’t have been there, that she would have been murdered by nursing-staff, because of the events that I witnessed.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 14:59:54 +0000