Notes from the Edge 04-21-2024

E.R. Visit

Wound up in the E.R. the other evening/morning with my wife who was not feeling well; wow, what an eye opener that was.

Got there the previous afternoon at around 4:00 PM or so. It was semi busy, looked about the same as it did twenty years ago, the last time I was in an E.R. waiting anyway; but within just a few moments I realized how different it was.

The first thing I noticed was Homeless People in the ER. Lounging, stealing pens and talking nurses and security staff into crackers, sodas, ice water, socks. I was amazed at how things were. Who knew? Well, apparently the hospital is because one of the homeless people was a handful for several hours. He got a staff member to give him a glass of ice and then went over to an abandoned half bottle of soda and poured over the ice and drank it. The man across from him said something to him and he made several colorful remarks back including “It ain’t your f*ckin’ soda so shut the f*ck up. I reminded myself to keep my f*ckin’ mouth shut, which I did, but when I turned back to my wife, she was glancing past me to the left trying to get me to look, so I did.

Nothing special a young girl all curled up in a single seat, she was that small with pink toenails sticking out, which is what I thought she was referring to. I shook my head, I didn’t get it, so she cut her eyes again and I looked back, this time sliding past the pink toenails to a large expanse of bare ass sticking out of those skin-tight see-through- yoga pants she had on that a lot of women seem to wear, that has somehow slid off her hips and down to the middle of her ass. A full moon.

I almost laughed and then had to remind myself that I had looked with permission, but I had better not look again. I think I said something like ‘Urk” I didn’t know what else to say.

About then homeless man one starting wandering around the E.R. talking to himself. Things like: “Lass week I’s in Buffalo shootin’ H. Been out since Saturday.” Then he looks at you like he might just cut you for your pocket change.

Cut my eyes away, overshot and wound up looking at that wide expanse of ass again. Jeezz, I said to myself, out loud.

“What are you looking at that woman’s ass again for?” My wife asked. “Wasn’t I lied,” and nodded at the mumbling homeless man who had luckily migrated to the general area of behind the woman’s ass.

My wife left off, satisfied but why is there something like that in an E.R. anyway?

Things chilled out for eleven seconds and then the girl must have felt a breeze on her ass and tugged up her yoga pants. I swear withing a very few seconds they were back down so far, I was sure there was going to be a serious breach of panties at any moment. And, the thing is, those yoga pants are so thin you can see everything through them, panties, EVERYTHING. I felt like switching places with my wife, having her run interference. But, no, this was my problem and so I forced my eyes back to wandering around the ER.

Homeless man 1 got a nurse to give him a Sprite and some snacks. He was happy for a moment, and that was when homeless man two showed up. He asked to see a patient that did not exists. When the security guard told him there was no such patient he said “Oh, Okay,” and wandered away to a small corner of the waiting room that held a few chairs and disappeared from the security guard. Suddenly security guard 2 shows up, is informed by security guard 1 that there may be a problem, and heads over to the area homeless man 2 disappeared in.

We could hear a brief argument: Yes, we, the whole damn room was bored, waiting to be seen and since the wide expanse of ass had once again been covered there was nothing else to do, then the two of them came out of the corner with homeless man 2 protesting that he had simply forgot to sign in. The security guard walks him to the sign-in table right next my wife and I and hands him the paper to fill out. The homeless man stood for a few moments, fumbled with the pen, stole two of the pens and then headed down the hallway the went back into the ER proper.

“HEY!” Yelled the security guard from the desk, “you can’t go down there! But down there he went and so the security guard chased him down and he came back reluctantly. And, just as the security guard sat down the homeless guy starts scream and jumping up and down and shaking his fists in front of the desk and trying to eyeball all of us with the stank eye at the same time. “I Want a Psych Review! I WANT A F*CKIN’ PSYCH REVIEW RIGHT NOW!!!

That puckered me up. I have seen crazy before, and I don’t like it. Especially when I have a wife right next to me and in between me and sir crazy. So, I edged forward. Old I may be, but I weigh 270 and if he comes to close to my wife, he’s going to lay down hard.

He didn’t. A second later he bolted down the hallway again this time pursued by a skinny security guard who apparently had bigger kahunas that the other fat security guard. We didn’t see him again for a while, so I assume he got his wish for a psych eval.

I believe it was about four hours later when my wife was finally called back to see the actual doctor; after a cat scan, blood work and an exam by a PA and a nurse. This was around midnight.

Within seconds of her leaving the semi naked woman next to me began to cry. Uh uh, I told myself. Your wife will kill you. And so, I sat there like the sane old bastard I am and let her cry. I felt bad, but the older you get you either get smarted or you find yourself the star of an episode of Snapped where wifey buried you in the back yard garden, and they only discovered you because the cat partially disinterred you while crapping on you.

Two hours after that, with more homeless man 1 con jobs on the nurses, and more expanses wide expanses of bare ass the nurse came and got me to take me back there. I admit it, I thanked God profusely.

It was after shift change the next day before we were seen by the doctor. And as we sat back there for hours waiting Homeless man 1 got sent to Pysch Eval too, where we overheard homeless man 2 already was. He ran in there as soon as the door to the mental health unit was opened. We finally ended the whole fiasco after 14 plus hours, no sleep, wifey finally got a shot that gave her some relief. 14 hours for a shot to help settle down a migraine. Crazy, and finding out that drug addicts and homeless people have, at least from what we saw, and the fact that the hospital staff catered to them as though they were used to giving them pens, paper, notebooks, sodas, crackers and more to settle them down, have pretty much tried to settle the problems they have in their lives by crashing in on the hospital E.R and mental Health units.

I left some things out because you wouldn’t believe it and I don’t want to exploit people as it was a real event. But next time you need to make an E.R. visit you might want to switch that to an urgent care, I understand those places are marginally worse for the care part, but substantially stricter for the crazies. Of course, I might add that Urgent Care had at least one doctor on, and the ER, 20 times larger also had only one doctor one…

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