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Cooties
I'm at my desk this morning, knee deep in Photoshop, when I get a call. Its Leslie. She tells me my dad's not doing so great, and he and my mom are heading to the emergency room.
To give you a bit of background, last week my dad had a rush heart catherization to clear a blockage. No heart attack, but chest pains from a vein around his thumper that had all but closed off.
So anyway, Les said that my mom was pretty upset (which is rare) and "it'd be a good idea to go and be a shoulder" just in case. My office is just a few blocks from the hospital, so I decide to walk on up.
When I got to the emergency room, I went up to the check-in desk and asked the admissions lady if my dad had made it in. Before she could answer this older lady butts in and tells the admissions lady that her doctor told her to "get in on down here and see a doctor". The admissions lady pardons the interruption, and then she tends to the old lady. Soon she sends old lady on her way, old lady exits stage left. At this point admissions lady directs her attention back to me and tells me that my dad did arrive and they "are working him up". She then asked me to have a seat in the waiting room and I can go back to see him in 15 minutes.
The waiting room is huge. I'm talking 75, maybe 100 seats. Its also uncharacteristically empty, not the usual standing room only I always hear about. There may be 5 people in there, tops. I find a seat. Its out of the way, in the back corner next to a wall.
Old lady walks by.
Old lady walks back.
Old lady walks by again.
(think tennis match)
Old lady walks back again.
Old lady walks by AGAIN!
Then old lady stops. Backs up and walks all the way back to my little corner of the room. She looks down at me, coughs, then sits down next to me. Of all the empty seats in the entire waiting room she plops down right next to me! And stares.
I acknowledge her with a quick smile and a "hello". I'm uncomfortable because the woman is now all up in my personal space, but she seems harmless. Crazy as batshit, but harmless.
She comes back with "Good" *hock* *cough* *croup* "Mornun'", and continues to stare.
"What" *hack-roar-cough* "you here for?"
"Just visiting." I tell her.
"Well I'm here 'cause I got a this pain on my right side, My doctor told me to get here right away, but I told him I was fine, but he said he was going to call an am'blance if I didn't come down here, then I told him ok, I'd go, but I weren't gone a ride in no am'blance 'cause it cost too much, you know how much those am'blances cost nowadays, and I walked down here, I've had this cough for a long time, you know you look familiar, ain't your name Tom? I'm Merna."
She's coughing and hocking phlegm up between every other word.
"No ma'am, not Tom, my name is Mark. Nice to meet you Merna." I don't offer a handshake.
"...and you're right, you've got a terrible cough."
"My doctor, Doctor Stephens, told me to get down here right away and get these doctors to get me a anty-botic, but I hate this place, I ain't never liked coming down here, the people treat you like cows, but you're nice, my doctor wants me to get a anty-botic, he says he thinks I got the viral pneumonia..."
VIRAL PNEUMONIA. More specifically THE VIRAL PNEUMONIA.
She kept talking, but after I heard those two words I couldn't process anything else she said. Merna the nice crazy woman, just turned into a bag of biohazard.
I freak.
While she continues to blather, I find myself breathing in short gulps. I've glued myself to the wall on my left like wallpaper, cowering, trying to (politely) get the hell away from her.
Finally I tell her that I've really got go to find a bathroom and I get up. As I'm walking away she's still talking, coughing, and staring.
1/19/2005 10:35:04 PM
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