Michelle, My Wife, Is In The Hospital

She says she feels fine. No, with the COVID agenda in full force here in Maine yet, visits are restricted to an hour or so a day. I'll probably go tomorrow or Sunday, but it's a 120-mile round-trip drive so I talk to her via the Mac Messenger app.

 

I had symptoms of a small stroke one morning in Jan of 2020. Got at the E.R. at 1PM, by then symptoms had abated with no apparent residual effects. They did some tests (including CT scan of brain) which all came back clean. They still recommended that I stay overnight. I did.

You don't mess with this stuff. Gotta be grateful we have Instant Admittance and these resources available.

I hope all turns out OK. A few days here & there to be certain ain't gonna matter in the long run.

edit to add: You've been an EMS. I guess you already know this, huh?

 

I have to call ahead of time because if they make up new numbers between now and then, they might cancel visiting time.

 

My wife and I differ when it comes to medical care, or at least we approach it differently. She sees a doctor whenever something occurs that concerns her, while I wait to see if 1) it goes away, or 2) I can learn to live with it. I hate doctors and second-guess everything they tell me, while she trusts them until a reason for distrust becomes obvious. I don't actually hate doctors but I recognize that their training and focus is on treating symptoms rather than illnesses; therefore much of what they suggest doesn't do anything to actually fix the problem.

 

We are alike in that respect.

Perhaps we were put on this planet to make doctors earn their pay.

 

I'll be headed to Bangor in about an hour but, since visiting times are brief, I'll be back later this afternoon.

 

I stayed way past the end of visitor's hours. The nurses didn't care and she wasn't sharing a room with anyone. No one will know I'm there until I go out into the hallway, and then what are they going to do? Kick me out? I'm leaving anyhow.

 

I get to the hospital and there's a huge line stretching most of the way across the parking lot, and everyone is supposed to do the social distancing thing. Then, someone from the hospital staff comes along and replaces the mask that I am wearing with a paper one. Then someone else comes along and does the screening questions. At another place, still outside, they match up the person I am visiting with those on her visitor list and put a band on my arm. Finally, I get to the door, where they do the temperature check. Then, we all walk to the elevators, where twenty people crowd into an elevator.

 

We had to go through the same thing when I had to go to the hospital last year because of the a-fib. Robin was with me, and they allowed one person, but she had to stand in the long line and go through all of that rigamarole before she could be with me, too.

 

Visiting hours are scheduled to start at two but they don't even start the screening, or open the doors until two. If the nurses made visitors stick to the schedule, those in the back of the line would get only about 20 minutes or so to actually visit.

 

She feels pretty okay. They are treating it as a cardiac event at least until after the tests on Monday, although nothing has definitively pointed to that yet.