Over the past years, I and three of my friends have found ourselves curled up in the fetal position and lying on a gurney in our local emergency room. Aside from the painful and frightening aspects of an urgent medical condition is the process one must undergo when there is no family or neighbor available for transport. Naturally, a deep friendship bond is desirable when a friend is in need of an advocate and driver. Not to mention someone you trust to see your exposed derriere or any ratty underwear. Please make a list of friends who are able to drive at night. Spending painfully wasted minutes calling on a list of people and getting the "Sorry, but I can't drive at night, but I will call an ambulance for you" response is counterproductive and scary. No one wants to go to the ER alone.
Since most of us in our sixties and seventies are mothers and grandmothers and we loathe having anyone make a fuss over us, unless it's Mother's Day, we are apt to wave away the notion that the EMTs should be called. The sound of a siren heralds to the neighbors that the first step toward assisted living has been taken. After this incident, all eyes will be peeled for any deviation from the norm. Be very careful, the younger generation has a hair trigger when making these decisions, and are not hesitant about using it. Go outside just once with your bra over your shirt. Bang! You're in a home.
People should learn to appreciate the process a person of age, and living alone must navigate in order to make a decision about emergency trips to the hospital. First, while writhing in pain, one must determine if, indeed, this is an emergency. Second, whom to call once it's determined that this is an emergency: cold sweat, white knuckles, chest pain and shallow breathing are usually adequate signs. Ok, it's an emergency. Should I shower and change clothes? Would this be a good time to write my will? Why should I leave anything to those ungrateful brats who never call or come by? Wonder why mother left the good china to my brother instead of me. What if I die, but come back. Should I write a book about it? I don't want to be buried, but don't like the thought of cremation, except in the case of my ex, and he should be conscious!
After admission to the hospital's ER (and this is when the meter starts ticking) a series of MRIs, CAT scans or x-rays and blood tests, etc., will begin, but only after a nurse has taken a medical history which is usually relayed through clinched teeth and moans. They take your history regardless of how many times in the past you've given it to them. When is that national data base gonna kick in? Diagnostic tests can take hours to accomplish before the poor suffering soul learns precisely what the problem is and receives relief.
During this glacially paced process, we older folk mentally jog through a list of fatal diseases we believe we are probably harboring and have remained hidden from our physician. We are convinced we are terminal because in all the ER stories we've heard from friends it begins rather innocuously: Barbara Simpson went in for a hang nail and within two months she dies of Dengue fever. During the twenty minutes following the medical history and the CAT scan, and while hospital workers are twiddling their thumbs, we (the older, efficient generation) have managed to experience all seven stages of grief and have entered the funeral home's number on speed dial in our cell phone. And at this vulnerable juncture we switch from pondering which fatal disease will be the cause of death to planning our funeral.
Should Amazing Grace be played as a processional or recessional? Should it be a vocal or instrumental? I should probably write my own obit since the ungrateful brats won't have anything nice to say about me and evidently they have forgotten when I was born. Gee, those latex gloves look really big. . . What should I wear? My daughter who has hated me since junior high will have me put in my old navy wool suit with shoulder pads and pleats, knowing darn well it always made me look fat-uh-fatter. From funeral planning we may segue into remorse: I shouldn't have put Nair in Wanda Snodgrasses' shampoo in high school, or substituted baby aspirins for Helen Bright's birth control pills in college. I take it all back.... Anyway, you get the picture. Life is not simple at this age. Too many decisions and amends to make and so little time.
After what seemed to be days, which in reality was only four hours, the twelve-year-old ER doc comes back with all the test results. Diagnosis: GAS! That's right. The intestinal by-product of too much fiber and too little elimination was responsible for the horrific circumstances that propelled us (un-huh, pun intended) into the hospital. Embarrassing? Yes. Expensive? Yes. The bill came to just over $3000.00. Since the local ER is just a little over 8 miles away, I figure with the current price of gas that comes to about $375.00 per mile. That is not counting the cost of Gas X that we buy and wear in an amulet around the neck. Perhaps in the future it may be advisable to wear a medical alert bracelet with the warning: keep away from open flame.
