Make Mine Mike

Colorful volcanic glass: a geologist’s dream, right there in the parking lot gravel.

My head feels like gravel now. So damn tired.

I had a rough couple of days -- on Monday my mom felt a pain in her side which she thought might be appendicitis. Maybe she was overreacting... or maybe she should be safe rather than sorry.

Unfortunately, the emergency room at Valley Presbyterian Hospital seems to lean toward the idea that people shouldn’t bother coming in unless they’re dying. Otherwise, they make you wait… eight hours on Monday, and over nine hours Tuesday.

On Monday, the aide who brought Mom to the hospital had to leave after waiting all day. I had called everyone to say I was on my way up there, left work early, but no one relayed the message, nor told me when she was dispatched, so when I got to the waiting room after fighting rush-hour traffic, she had already gone back home. She figured she'd wait and see how she felt...

Then Tuesday, Mom was complaining of the same pain -- was it serious, or just a pulled muscle or lingering indigestion? Who knows? Her primary physician certainly couldn’t tell… well, maybe he could, if he ever returned any of our calls.

So she had an ambulance take her (can’t wait for those bills from the Fire Dept. to come so I can promptly ignore them and their collection threats) and waited again.

My sister and I weren’t sure if we should go up and stay with her… we felt a little bad about it but, being veterans at this kinda thing, didn’t know if it would’ve helped. Probably not. If I had gone there, I would’ve ended up killing someone in that hospital. I certainly went ballistic to them over and over on the phone: “I know it doesn’t seem severe, but don’t you people care that you’ve got an elderly crippled woman sitting there for a grand total of 15 hours and counting?!” Unbefuckinglievable.

She went in around 5PM Tues… and they saw her at 2:30AM Wed. morning. It wasn’t appendicitis; it was a pulled abdominal muscle as I suspected. But my sister and I were both up most of the night trying to get her examined and later trying to arrange for a cab ride for her to get back.

Mom seems to be fine now. I’d say all’s well that ends well, but… you know how many times we’ve been through something like this in the last few years? Sigh.

Otherwise things w/me are great – lots of fun stuff going on, including last night’s LA Blogger Meet 2… with such cool people as Hilary, Annabel, Paul, Keith, Joel, Amandarin, Tamara, Dave and Eve... am I forgetting anyone? Good times, but after the other two days, and a few vodka-rocks last night, I’m too damn tired to elaborate.