Journal of a Living Lady #70

 

Nancy White Kelly

 

Buddy’s trip to the emergency room on his birthday is a hard act to follow. But I tried. Sunday afternoon I had shoulder pain like crazy. It wouldn’t go away no matter what I took. Because of the cancer, I have an arsenal of pain killers available, but not even morphine helped. I thought,  wimpy me. I can’t even stand arthritis pain anymore. Where was the Nancy of old who hardly winced at needles or broken bones,  the one who’d rather suffer all day than take an aspirin. Well, apparently she doesn’t exist anymore. The pain was horrendous. Still I didn’t tell Buddy. He didn’t need anything else to worry about with the national debt and all.

 

After retiring for the night, the shoulder pain improved some, but then I had chest pain. It was sort of like bad indigestion, only I seldom get anything as common as indigestion. I waited futilely for the elephant in my chest to come forth. He didn’t.

 

With Buddy snoring blissfully, I slipped out of bed  and phoned the 24-hour “nurse on call,” provided by my PPO insurance plan. After explaining the symptoms, she told me to go immediately to the closest emergency room. That wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

 

I went back into the bedroom, flipped on the overhead light and announced to Buddy that he needed to take me to the ER. He was caught totally off-guard. He fumbled around for his shoes and socks while I waited somewhat impatiently for him to get his act together.

 

We went to a different hospital than where Buddy went on his ER trip. He announced at the desk that I was having chest pains and off I went through the ominous swinging doors. The staff couldn’t have been nicer. The ER doctor asked the routine questions, ordered tests, and a cardiogram. The nurse kept poking little white nitroglycerin pills down me and eventually the pain lessened to a mere annoyance. At 2:00 a.m. they admitted me. How unfair. Buddy got to go home. But, me, with a medical history that rivals War and Peace in volume, I am too risky to turn loose so quickly.

 

For whatever reason, I was given the best room in the hospital. They call it the “VIP” room. The admissions clerk must have checked with the ambulance services to be sure there weren’t any real VIP’s en route. I felt honored to have three wall hangings to stare at, a TV with a remote that worked, and a private bathroom with gleaming fixtures and a sit-down shower stall.

 

We still don’t know for sure what caused the pain, my heart or the cancer. Maybe it was a case of “much ado about nothing.” Hope so. I was sprung late the next afternoon.

 

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