I Really Should Write More Often

Nobody that has an honest bone in their body, could ever say that my life is lacking in drama.

Friday afternoon Sis calls and tells me she is not feeling too good and is driving herself to the hospital. If she comes to my office, will I go with her?

She didn’t sound horribly distressed and she was driving herself and my house is 1/2 mile from the office…so I say meet me at home and I’ll drive you. Then I head for home.

At home, the phone rings and it’s Sis. I think I’m going to stop at this hospital over here. It’s closer and the chest pains are getting worse.

CHEST PAINS!!!!!! GOOD GRIEF! So I hop in the car and chug on over to where she is.

By the time I got there Sis was talking to the triage nurse in the ER. So, knowing that she was in capable hands but not hands as capable as mine…I stuck my big fat nose in and sat with her.

An EKG, heart X-ray, many doses of nitro, and many blood tests later, Sis is admitted for the night. I trot on up to the room with her. Since she missed dinner, they brought her a microwaved Lean Cuisine to eat. OVER microwaved to hockey puck status. Fancy that – hospital food taken to a new low. Sis was feeling better and not in any immediate danger, so I headed for home.

Dad calls…How much do you like Chickie and her friend? he asks.

Er… I am kinda fond of them…..why?

It seems that when I was unavailable to take them to their appointed meeting with the “group”, Chickie sweet-talked Grandpa into delivering them. Grandpa is pretty much night blind and driving with him in the dark can most positively be spun as an “experience”. AK! Lucky for Chickie, Sis was OK enough for me to come home and pick her up….otherwise I might have been splitting my time BETWEEN hospitals! How she managed to get that grouchy old man out at night is a mystery to me….but I will need to talk to her about making sure she uses her powers for good and not evil!

Then I find out that Chickie’s friend (who stays nearly EVERY weekend with us) is having her Sweet 16 birthday on Sunday. This girl is a quiet, pleasant and helpful child who has been dealt quite a hand. Best I can figure, her dad is, at best, an intermittent presence in her life. Mom has 4 or 5 kids…the oldest of which is facing some serious jail time for a “hate crime” which, if I am getting the full story, is ludicrous. Mom has no car and walks to her job every day. The younger kids are 4th grade age. Chickie’s friend has been living with her cousin, who is a 19 year old single working mother. My heart goes out to this girl – will she make decisions and have the fortitude to carry through and rise above her family situation? I took them out to a movie Sunday night for a lame and nearly belated Sweet 16 celebration. But THEY went to see The Ring. I hate horror movies and so *I* went to go see Harry Potter 2. It was a fun movie – I liked it better than the first. My daughter has a heart as big as all outdoors.

Meantime, back at the hospital…It was determined that Sis did NOT have a heart attack. Nope. No way. No heart problems at all……so they recommended that she have an angioplasty and follow that up with a stress test.

Did you hear me? I said NO heart problems…so they wanted her to do all sorts of invasive stuff to fix the heart problems that she doesn’t have. All I can think of is that she must have some damn good insurance…….

The most likely cause for the chest pains is a severe magnesium deficiency…which Sis has had a problem with before, although it didn’t manifest itself in chest pains. This established, Sis is ready to go home….but NO. Seems that if you check yourself out of the hospital AMA (against medical advice) the insurance company won’t pay the bill. Does this make sense to anyone? She can leave NOW and not incur any more costs for the insurance company….or she can stay the 3-4 extra days and do all sorts of unnecessary tests and leave LATER at a much higher cost. What am I missing here?

Sis is home, Daddy is back to driving during daylight hours and at least the friend gets a good meal or two and a roof over her head on the weekends. And me…….. well, someday soon I’ll figure that out.