Hospital experiences — both light and harrowing

On Tuesday, Sept. 6, the Old Men of the Mountain had an unusual meeting at Mrs. K’s Restaurant in Middleburgh. The proprietor of the restaurant was on vacation in Maine where she unfortunately had a medical event and was taken to the hospital in York, Maine.

The irony of this is that this scribe was at Cape Porpoise in Maine sometime back and had a medical event and was taken to the hospital in York, Maine.

The proprietor of the restaurant had her problem evaluated and fixed. The scribe (as is usual with this OF) remembers the hospital couldn’t find what was going on and instructed him to see his doctor when he got home.

In this case, the OF’s doctor said he had a whopping case of solar neuralgia and the medicine was to wear a hat. This scribe does, and the neuralgia is gone.

The proprietor then related a story to the OMOTM about her experience at this hospital with another patient, who the proprietor thought was a regular. The proprietor did not know if the patient was inebriated or had a mental condition, but he came into her room and started up what seemed to be a normal conversation.

Then this character sat at the edge of the proprietor’s bed and continued to talk. Then before she knew it he tried to get into bed with her and his whole demeanor changed. All this was going on while the proprietor’s husband was sitting on the other side of the curtain.

The proprietor said her husband was getting ready to take care of the situation and she said she would handle it and went to the nurse’s desk and reported what was going on. They (hospital security) of course did take care of it and the visitor was taken away.

As the proprietor said, “You can’t make this stuff up.”

Welcome to Maine.

Back to school

School is back; some of the OMOTM met school buses on the road Tuesday morning. Going back to school caused two reactions from the OFs — some say, “No way” while others would like to be that age.

One OF said he would like to go back to school as a junior but have the knowledge he now knows about women and to heck with the school work.

Another OF said he learned what he knows more naturally than from books. There is a big question here. What about reading, writing, and arithmetic? Sometimes it is hard to remember when we learned to read, write, and add, multiply, and divide.

COVID not over

At Mrs. K’s, there was another event. One OF felt fine at the table having his coffee but, when the OF got up, he did not feel so well. When paying his bill, the OF felt a little wobbly and by the time the OF got to the front door he had to sit down.

The OF did not sit for too long and felt worse. It wasn’t long before the ambulance was called and the OF took an ambulance ride to St. Peter’s while other OFs took his vehicle to his home.

St. Peter’s emergency drop-off was packed with ambulances. It was raining as the ambulance from Middleburgh unloaded the OF in the rain, out on the drive. Great way to start.

Inside, according to the OF, the gurneys from the ambulances were lined up in the hallway in the order they arrived at the emergency room. It was quite a while before the Middleburgh group was first in line.

Once in the hospital, the OF said, he watched the show in the emergency room area for 12 hours, on a gurney, in a hallway, and he saw how dedicated the people who work there are. They treat everyone from addicts to people banged up from head to toe, complete weirdoes, and from really old people to crying toddlers.

Occasionally, someone would come and check out the OFand take the OF’s vitals. Eventually, the OF found out he was waiting for a room because he was being admitted and the hotel was full.

The OF said he had something wrong but the doctors could not figure it out. One doctor, the OF said, thought it would be best to do a CT scan, while following up on the heart, which was fine, but the symptoms weren’t.

Finally, the following morning, there was a room and the OF was taken there and the OF said, before he was even in the room, he was whisked to have the CT scan.

The hospital had the OF all wired up to check out his heart, yet all the evidence noted there was nothing the matter with his heart. Eventually, they had the CT scan report and a doctor came and told the OF he had blood clots on the lungs.

Both lungs had clots going all around on the bottom. The doctor asked if the OF had had his COVID shots — and the OF did have them and was boosted. However, the OF said he did get COVID and had quite a time getting over it.

The doctor said he wasn’t over it yet. The clots were a result of COVID and he might have three to six months to go.

The OF said, “What a bummer; I knew I wasn’t feeling normal.”

The OF said he felt OK but not normal. “Ya know what I mean?”

One OF answered, “You OF, you never were normal, so how could you tell?”

Another OF suggested The OMOTM should purchase one of these yellow buses and have someone go around and gather everyone up and bring them to the breakfast. That would be some chore because to gather up Rick LaGrange, Doug Marshall, Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Otis Lawyer, with guest Don Martin, Glenn Patterson, Mark Traver, Joe Rack, Ken Parks, Duncan Bellinger, Wayne Gaul, Ted Feurer, Robbie Osterman, George Washburn, Bill Lichliter, Pete Whitbeck, Jake Herzog, Frank Dees, Marty Herzog, Russ Pokorny, Herb Bahrmann, Jack Norray, Lou Schenck, Bob Donnelly, Elwood Vanderbilt, and me, would be one heck of a route.