hospital

I was supposed to meet with my friend Michelle at 6 pm last night, to talk about a possible short story writing collaboration. About thirty seconds after I step in the door, however, my cellphone rings. It's Ruth, saying that Dad's in the emergency ward at the hospital. Apparently his doctor sent him there after Dad went to him, not feeling well. His doctor had done some tests, and one indicated possible early signs of kidney failure.

According to Ruth, Dad is supposed to have a five-hour wait. While this is somewhat reassuring (if it was urgent, they'd have seen him right away). We both hate the idea of him sitting there alone, feeling very ill, and not knowing what's going on. I apologize to Michelle, and Ruth picks me up.

After navigating some nasty rush-hour traffic, we arrive at Peel Memorial Hospital. It's weird being there again. I had gotten to know the building really well when my Mom was there dying from cancer; my family had taken shifts around the clock to be with her.

My father is no longer waiting; apparently they were freaked out by his blood pressure and bumped him up ahead of everyone else. This scares me.





The hospital staff run all kinds of tests on Dad, and then we sit back to wait. "Sit" isn't exactly accurate; there are no chairs in the tiny partitioned-off area that is currently my father's space in the hospital. Ruth and I stand most of the time. Occasionally one of us will get too tired and try sitting on the floor, but the thought of what might have been on the floor soon grosses us out and we end up standing again.

On the other side of the curtain, an older Italian woman is cursing the hospital staff. "Get me a glass of water!" she yells at a nurse who is trying to insert an IV. "I'm sorry, but you can't have any water right now," the nurse says. "SH*T!" the woman yells. "I want water!" There is sound of abrupt movement.

"Stop that," we hear the nurse say. "That's unacceptable behaviour here. Do you want me to call Security?"

"You do what you want!" the woman yells. "You try to kill me!" She curses some more, partly in English, partly in Italian. "I want my son. Get my son!"

Ruth and I try to distract my father, who is lying wide-eyed on his cot listening. He is supposed to be trying to get his blood pressure down, and this probably isn't helping.

The woman lets out a bloodcurdling scream of frustration, and then starts crying noisily, blubbery sobs that turn into quiet whimpers. Despite her treatment of the staff, I feel sorry for her. She's clearly frightened, and not able to communicate well in English. From the snatches of conversation, we learn that she was brought in shortly after my father with severe stomach pains and high blood pressure.

"The people never stop," we hear her whimper to herself on the other side of the curtain. "They just come and go around and around and around and around."





A doctor finally comes and tells us that the tests all came back clean; my dad's kidneys are fine. They're still concerned about his blood pressure, so give something called a "beta blocker" to lower his blood pressure. He can go home, they say, but should come back the following day to see a specialist to find out what's causing the sudden escalation in his blood pressure.

Jeff arrives with food (yay! I'm starving...I had no dinner and the hospital cafeteria was closed) which I hoover while we wait for a nurse to return with a prescription form for my dad. We drive my Dad to a 24-hour pharmacy to get his pills, then back to his house in Bramalea. I'm dead tired and want to go home, but Jeff insists on staying until we know my Dad's gone to bed okay (and then I feel guilty, of course :-)); he's still feeling nauseous.

I'm still worried about Dad's blood pressure, but am relieved that it wasn't worse last night. I still wonder about what happened to that frightened elderly Italian woman, who was still there when we finally left.

The people never stop...they just come and go around and around and around.

---

Today's Blatherpic:

	Medical equipment at the head of my dad's bed in the emergency ward.
	Ruth as we wait for my Dad to get an x-ray.
	A sign in my dad's curtained-off partition which said that only one visitor was allowed per patient. Ruth and I ignored this.