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Summer skies here at noon |
Roger spent several hours in ER on Thursday. The staff ran an EKG because of his existing heart condition, and a CT scan of his brain because of the dizziness brought on by previously diagnosed brain white matter. Then he waited and waited and waited for a doctor to discuss the results with him. I couldn't be with him in the ER so I dropped him off there, came home and waited to hear when he had the tests and results so I could pick him up. After an hour or so, I called him and found that he was still waiting to talk with a doctor. I called him every twenty minutes (we only have once cell phone, so I couldn't text him). I'm sure I drove the other two patients crazy who were also waiting and waiting and waiting to see the ER doc. So, after four hours he decided he'd had enough and told the nurse that he was going to leave. One other patient also left at the same time. The nurse said, "Yes, it's fucking bedlam here." Well, that was that.
He did get the results of the lab and imaging tests later that day by logging into his account there. Nothing had significantly changed since his last tests a year ago. Mmmm. We're not sure what happened and probably never will. He was never contacted by the staff at the hospital to discuss the results. Health care here is not the very best and that trip to ER confirmed how difficult it can be. It is a little bit worrisome as we get older, but it is what it is.
It does make me wonder what health care is like where you live. Do you feel safe, that it is reliable, and that you are always in good hands? We often think the health care here is so crappy because we live in an area far from the major cities. It's not on very many dream lists of places to go after medical school. So we have to pretty much accept what we have.

Other than that I did see a beautiful big dog wandering down our street alone one evening around 8:00 pm. I ran outside to see if it was lost and if I could maybe call its people. I called to it. It ran over so fast and was so happy to see me. He came into the front yard, and I gave him a big bowl of water. He lapped it up so fast. That made me happy. Then I tried to see if he had an ID tag. He did, but we couldn't read it. So, we decided to walk him over to a neighbor who helps with stray cats and dogs. On our way down the street, the dog got a bit ahead of us. It walked fast. We watched it. Then a pickup truck turned onto our street. It stopped and the doggie jumped right in. There were two other dogs already in there. We're pretty sure the doggie had found its human. He looked happy. That's our big furry doggy story.