Recently I had to take a trip to the emergency room because of a nasty reaction to a horrible "black box" antibiotic that is typically used for things like exposure to Anthrax. I was thinking my doctor was trying to kill me. I thought I was dying when this all started, so two of my daughters dragged me to the car and drove me to the ER which turned out to be one of the craziest situations that I have ever experienced.
It started with the drug reaction itself which was not funny - itching, red swollen hives the size of wrist-sweatbands that Andre Agassi wore when Pete Sampras kicked his ass in his final career-ending match. The hives popped up like all hives tend to - predominantly around the "moist, private regions" and my joints. The first ones I noticed were on my butt cheeks. I didn't know they were hives at first because I had just purchased new underwear and thought I was having a reaction to the fabric or elastic since I only had itchy bumps where the panties were so when I took them off, it looked like I was wearing a pair of red swollen "skin panties."
Over the next day the hives multiplied and spread - moving to my armpits, elbows, backs of knees, ankles, wrists and expanded panty region. On day two when their action worked its way into my mouth with a fiery red tongue that felt like sandpaper and kept me from swallowing water, I knew it was time to move beyond home remedies and call on a higher power -- my daughters.
My 24-year-old, 5'2" mini drill sergeant arrived before I hung up from my conversation with her. She went directly to my medicine cabinet to make notes of my current prescriptions, knowing that the nurses would ask about my medical history and current medications, and then started to straighten up my disastrous bathroom vanity that was littered with Benadryl bubble packs, tissues, empty water bottles and paper plates with bits of toast laying on them.
About 10 minutes later my 25-year-old, 5'8" flighty Florence Nightingale arrived. She took one look at her sister and asked why she looked so cute in her fancy black velour sweat-suit and blinged-out t-shirt, with her hair curled all nice. Then she looked down at herself and commented that she didn't have time to "get ready" because she was too worried about me - so she pulled on a pair of old sweats with paint splotches on them, "Grampy's" old over-sized sweatshirt and at the last minute, or possibly at a stoplight, grabbed about 95% of her hair and pulled it into a very messy pony tail. She sighed and then went to work finding me comfy clothes for my ER trip.
The girls dressed me, grabbed my pillow and slowly walked me to the car using the tiniest baby steps ever. Florence Nightingale was the designated driver (always) since the drill sergeant had already crashed three times since she got her license, yet still called herself "a good driver," Somehow, she thought a better use of her time would be sitting in the back seat crunching loudly enough on a box of Triscuits was a good idea. Clearly, she had forgotten that it drove me crazy hearing people crunch and chew loudly. It was so bad that I had walked out on several movie theatres because the person beside me was a "loud cruncher." I had to put the kibosh on the Triscuit noshing until after I was either a) out of her sight or b) dead, because it was too much for my fragile state.
The triage nurse who did nothing more than ask questions was a very bitter woman. I tried to explain through my blistered, swollen tongue that I had trouble talking and swallowing and that even water was painful in my mouth. My daughter, Florence Nightingale, who once tried to rescue cat by crawling into a road-side storm drain wouldn't have any of this as she began to feel my pain, so she tried to take over for me. Nurse Ratchet would have no part of this though, as she wagged her bony finger in my daughter's face. Then with a voice I haven't heard since the Wicked Witch of the West told Dorothy, "I'll get you, my pretty!" She said, "Stop answering her questions - she can speak for herself! I don't care how much it hurts!" And with that, the witch nurse turned to me and said, "Now, when was your last menstrual period?" I glared into her bitter, life-hating eyes and whispered, "I don't have a uterus."
It wasn't long before they wheeled me back to my not-so-private space where I would answer the same set of questions at least two more times while nurses seemed to be writing something else down, like a shopping list, instead of the answers to my health questions. Finally, when Nurse Carla said I was next to see the doctor I felt a bit hopeful. I still felt like I was going to die -- I could barely speak, I still had my skin/hive panties on, my Andre Agassi wrist hives, and I felt like my skin was burning from the inside-out - but I was hopeful, nonetheless.
I'd been asking Florence Nightingale who has the patience of Job to move a heat pack onto and off of my eyes every 90 seconds to help my migraine symptoms. Unfortunately the heat was a little intense so I couldn't take it non-stop. She was more than happy to accommodate because that's what she did - tried to keep people (and kittens and baby birds and stray puppies) happy. The drill sergeant had a different set of skills, as she stood by with her perfectly arranged list of my medications, complete with color-coding, dosage, times of last doses and pharmaceutical maker. I think she may have brought samples of the open Benadryl blister pack, a piece of crust from one of my left-over toast bites and some hair strands from my hairbrush in case I died, and they decided to call in Patricia Arquette from "The Medium" show. Things quieted down as we waited for the doc. I fantasized for a moment that George Clooney or one of the other ER docs might walk in. Florence Nightingale announced she was going to the bathroom telling us she'd be back before the doctor came in. She closed the glass door behind her and the Drill Sergeant muttered under her breath, "She's so weird." I laid there trying to keep still and quiet because I knew the Drill Sergeant's touch with the heat pack wouldn't be as accommodating, so I wanted to try to wait out the next swap until she got back. But I didn't get a chance to think about my heat pack when she returned because it got kind of hectic pretty quickly.
I heard the glass door slide open, and then the curtain slid back in its track. My daughter, Florence Nightingale stepped into the room. The Drill Sergeant immediately (and loudly) commented, "Why the hell did you put mom's clothes on?" At this point I was very curious, so I tilted my head a bit to allow the heat pack to slip off the corner of my right eye and then I saw what she was talking about. My medium-size daughter had actually changed into my extra-small outfit. She had taken off her clothes - the paint-spotted old sweats and Grampy's over-sized sweatshirt and put on my matching velour zip-up hoodie, pants and tank top. She had let her hair down from the messy "broom" ponytail and brushed her hair, parted it on the side and pulled it into a low classy bun.
She simply answered, "Huh?" as if this was not a big deal, and something we might witness every day. So, the sergeant repeated, "Seriously, did you really just go to the bathroom and put mom's whole outfit on? " Of course, she couldn't deny it because she was standing there holding her old clothes in her arm and wearing mine. "Yeah," she said, as she hung her head in shame, her eyes darting around the room for a solution. "Well, you are just all cute today with your hair curled and your velour sweatsuit..." She let her thought trail off.
Her sister looked her up and down, then asked, "Dude, why is your crotch of your pants down to your knees? "So, Florence looked down and realized that it was noticeable, and said, "Mom's legs are shorter than mine so I had to pull the pants lower to make them touch my ankles. "And the sergeant blurted out, "Well you look stupid." She paused then interjected, "What is mom supposed to do when she's all done here -- walk out naked?"
At this point I had to see the look on Florence Nightingale's face. I mean she had done some pretty ditzy things in her life, but going into the bathroom in the middle of an ER visit to change into the sick person's clothes - this took the prize!
Her face said it all - it was like the time she tried to buy drinks at the bar with her health insurance card and that moment of realization sets in -
"Huh?" She looked down at her low-hanging crotch, the armful of waded-up sweats in her hand and suddenly understood what her sister was talking about - Mom had no clothes now!
What happened next was even more ridiculous than the stealth hallway "Superman" bathroom transformation that she had pulled five minutes ago. She went to the glass door and peeked out, "Do you think I can change before the doctor comes in?" My logical daughter couldn't hold back, "What the eff? No! We're next!"
But by the time she got half her sentence out, Florence was stripped halfway down to her thong. My clothes were piling up on the floor and she was throwing things around the exam room like it was a "Price is Right" stunt and she was trying to win a prize. She made a final single-handed grab and pull at her sweats as the door flung open, "Hi, I'm Dr. Richards..." which he announced as he wasn't all the way inside the tiny room. Thank God. Once inside, though, he looked at the wardrobe on the floor and his eyes moved from the pants to the jacket to the tank top and stopped on the red panties at my daughter's feet. He couldn’t hide his confusion. Then his gaze traveled from the pile of clothing up to her legs and stopped at her eyes. She saw this and knew this was more awkward than the time she tried to save a stray dog on the street that turned out to be a garbage bag.
At this point she simply bent over, reached down, and began to pick up the clothes one by one. She tucked them into a nice little pile as she assured me, with her cover story, "It's okay Mom, I got all your clothes for you, don't worry."
I held back a laugh and answered, "Thanks."
The doctor must have suspected something at that point as he chimed in, "I'm sorry, did I miss something?"
Oh, if he only knew...
Shelli Netko 2009 ©
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