All the gory details, part 3

Saturday, October 1st dawned overcast and grey. I was feeling yet much improved from the prior day. I had gone for twenty-four hours without a pain pill. The doctor stopped by and confirmed she was discharging me. A nurse appeared and told me I would be able to leave about noon. My friend Penny phoned and I asked her to pick me up at twelve noon.

Talk about a circus. In the late morning, a priest from St. Mary’s came by to bring me Eucharist. He anointed me with the sacrament of the sick. He had no sooner left than my friend Violet phoned to check on me. While I was on the phone with Violet my doctor appeared to give me my discharge instructions. So I had to hang up on Vi. While with the doctor, someone else came in to give me more discharge information. The phone rang and it was Vi, she thought she had hung up on me. The nurse was telling me that Apria Health Care Services would be delivering oxygen to my house between 12:00 and 4:00 p.m. The pharmacy had a question about my discharge drugs; food service arrived and asked if I wanted lunch. (I said yes, who knew when this farce would end.) My friend Penny arrived to drive me home and I am certain she wondered how good medicine could result from this chaos. It does, it really does. Then the nurse arrived again to tell me Apria was at my house ready to deliver my oxygen. The nurse told them to return at 2:00 p.m. I would be home by then.

At 1:15 pm Penny and I are telling the medical staff I need to leave if I am to be home by 2:00 p.m. to sign for the oxygen delivery. Remember I am recovering from a serious medical trauma; I need peace and tranquility to recover.

A candy striper arrives with a wheelchair to transport me downstairs and outside. But no one has told her that the wheelchair needs to transport oxygen as well. So down she goes to get another wheelchair properly equipped. She arrives with the wheelchair but then remembers that because she is a minor she is not allowed to transport hazardous material (oxygen). So in the interest of getting me out of the hospital the charge nurse gets behind my wheel chair and out we go.

When Penny and I arrive at my house, the Apria truck is sitting in front of the house. We check our watches; it is not yet 2:00 p.m. We are not late; they are early. The comedy of errors is about to come to a close. Four additional oxygen tanks are delivered into the house. The oxygen concentrator is brought in and installed. The sign “Oxygen is Use – No Smoking” is posted on the front window. I have fifty or eighty feet of tubeing that allows me to go anywhere in the house without moving the concentrator. When I leave the house I will use one of the tanks that have been delivered. I cannot turn on the burners of my stove or my oven. I must cook using my microwave or my George Foreman grill. No open flame. I wear the oxygen twenty-four seven. I am not allowed to drive. I cannot shower unless there is someone in the house who can call 911 if I go down again. I am totally dependent upon my friends and neighbors. I am on prayer lists all over the country. I am blessed to be surrounded by so many good people both from my church and from my writers’ group. I love them all.