Hospitals. Gotta love ’em, or gotta hate ’em. But the truth is, we all have to deal with them at some point.

So we had a medical adventure yesterday. Around 3:00 p.m. Monday, my dear husband John wasn’t feeling well. To be more specific, he said he felt like he was going to pass out. Immediately he sat down. Because he felt lightheaded after five or ten minutes, we decided to check his blood pressure on the portable machine we have at home. The first reading was – oh my God – 79/54.

“Whaaat?!” I yelled, thinking that he was closer to meeting his maker than we were comfortable with. So we kept taking his b.p. every few minutes, and thankfully the readings rose bit by bit, reaching over 100.  But by then he had a new symptom: he said he could feel his heart beating very strongly. It was unnerving. So I called 911. By this time it was around 3:30. The First Responders came, which consisted of 4 big burly guys, firefighters by trade. There wasn’t much they could do, so they left when the EMTs arrived. John was hooked up to an ECG machine; they told us that John was not having a heart attack. In fact the readings were all normal. Good news!

Then it was decision time. When we wondered aloud, “What now?” They suggested that going to the ER would probably be a good idea, you know, to go in their ambulance, get checked out, but that it was our decision. I thought so too, but memories of my own past ER visits that went on for hours upon hours  made me somewhat reluctant. John opted for the hospital, so off we went… not to the one we would’ve preferred, as their ER was full, but we were given a choice of two others (the EMTs had worked the phones), and we picked the one we were slightly more familiar with.

CUT TO: John’s now in triage. Vitals are taken. Finger is pricked for a glucose test. All ok. His case needs further investigation, so his bed (glorified stretcher, really) is rolled down corridors lined with other patients lying in various states of rumpled discomfort on their stretchers, who look like they’d been there for who knows how long… 😒

The orderly ahead of me pushes John’s bed into an area whose sign above says MONITORED CARE. We soon discovered that not all patients can be MONITORED equally.

Dear readers, I will spare you our tale of “torture,” waiting for seven hours with NO PHONES, because I, I alone confess, that amid the distraction of leaving our apartment together, EMTS, John on stretcher, me with purse, keys, John’s wallet, John’s jacket, food for Annie left in bowl, and locking our door after we were all out, I FORGOT OUR PHONES.

So okay, John the patient was a sweetie, much more patient than I, as the hours went on. Oh, he was seen alright. One nurse, later a doc. Still later a vampire – er, another nurse, came to draw his blood. Much much much later, another doc. All the while his b.p. was very good. Although it went quite high by the end of our stay, but that didn’t bother the staff. As hours passed, we could overhear various other medical stories up and down this ward. There was scant privacy. The beds were squished in rows, two to a cubicle. Eavesdropping meant you heard about the epilepsy girl across the way, and in the corner the unkempt guy in undies, yelling incomprehensibly, until three police officers arrived to help subdue him. But other than that, there was the complete and utter BOREDOM of WAITING.

We tried our best, playing “Hangman” on scraps of paper (parts of an old chequebook I found in my purse after much rummaging), sharing jokes and puns, but…

Let me tell you, I never realized before just how addicted we are to our phones. Well, more me, really. John not quite as much. In fact I told him that for me, it seems that my phone takes the place of my smoking addiction (pre-2003)! It “gives me something to do.” It feels like I’m doing something. And it – my phone, I mean – helps me in any situation where I must wait. I don’t wait very well.

All in all, John’s lightheadedness disappeared, his earlier headache had greatly eased, and his palpitations stopped, er, palpitating. He was feeling a lot better. And FINALLY we found someone who found a nurse who in turn found a doctor, who gave him a note for following up with his GP, and then discharged him. It was almost 11:00 p.m. We’d been there a little over seven hours.

The waiting was long and phone-lessly frustrating. But it was free. Thanks, Canada!