This Week Could Have Been a Scene from an Alfred Hitchcock Movie. . . Day 1

 This has been an insane week. Starting on Monday, the Hounds of Hell began yelping; and they have yet to shut up! Tommy had a doctor's appointment at Boone Hospital. His arrival was 1 p.m. The procedure for endoscopy of his pancreas was scheduled for 1:30. These procedures seldom last more than a couple of hours maximum. We are sitting in the waiting room listening for Tommy's name to be called. 1:30 arrives and leaves. So does 2:30. I become a little antsy. I take a walk and try and find a nurse. Last words Tommy says is, 'don't get in any trouble.' Like I would!. I mosey on back to the patient care area and there is no one in sight. Not one nurse, not one patient, not one janitor. I come back to the waiting room and ask Tommy if he is sure we are at the right place. He is positive we are at the right place. By then two other women have arrived and are in various stages of crying. I ask them if I can help and they said in unison "No, but thank you".  I tell them if they need me I am on the other side of the room divider. Finally, I walk back to our side of the waiting area and Tommy is dozing. I pick up a 2015 magazine and try to find something I haven't already read. It was no use. My mind was far from India and Peru. About this time a nurse comes up to us and asks us to follow her back to the room where we will meet the doctor and he will explain some things to us.    Alright!!!, we are about to get this show on the road. Tommy is given a gown and two hours later the doctor shows up.The doctor said he was running late because of emergencies, but that hopefully, he would be with us soon.  Keep in mind Tommy had been NPO since midnight and he is diabetic. It is close to 4 p.m. We sit in two comfortable chairs and drop off to sleep. I wake up at 5:30 p.m. The parking lot has lost three-fourths of the cars that were parked there earlier in the day. All of the dusk to dawn lights are on. The apartments across the street have a few lights randomly shining. No one is walking around in the houses or the parking lot. I get a creepy feeling something is wrong. That is when I decide to take another walk. Once again there is dead silence. There are no secretaries, no nurses, no doctors, and the janitor still hasn't shown up.I turn and walk down the other hallway. It is as empty as our hallway appears to be. Finally, I reach a room with a light on and there sit the two ladies who were crying earlier. Without thinking I blurt out, "Thank God you are here!! I thought the rapture had happened and we missed it.!!!"  They started laughing and said, "Well, I hope not" One of the ladies informed me her husband was the reason everything was screwed up. He had not eaten anything in three weeks. He could drink fluids but he was in so much pain they brought him to the hospital. Evidentally, he didn't want to come but they told him if he didn't he would die! I sat down with the ladies. Of course, we start talking about our husbands. One of the ladies said," My husband has been so sick and refused to come to the dr. He thought the drive was too far. They live down at the Lake of the Ozarks. She began to cry again. I told her that when mine talked to the doctor he seldom gets anything right. She gave me a knowing laugh. I apologize to her for the remark about the Rapture. She started laughing and said," That is the funniest thing I have heard in weeks! And I desperately needed to laugh. Just wait until I tell our church family about it, everyone will get a good laugh." I bet Tommy and I are on their prayer list. About this time, my stomach growls sounding like a herd of turtles marching across a gravel road. The lady asked me if I had eaten anything. I told her no because he was NPO and I don't like to leave when he is having a procedure done. She said, 'all I have left is an oatmeal cookie. But you can have that. I grabbed it and said,"Thank you", about a million times. It was the best oatmeal cookie Little Debbie had made or I have ever eaten. I heard someone singing sort of and I walked around the corner to see the janitor peeing in the urinal while blasting away on,"Amazing Grace". I tiptoed back and made a slow dash for my room to wait for Tommy. About ten minutes later the janitor pushed his cart down the hall singing,"Thank You, Jesus". By now it has started to rain...as in pouring down hard, heavy rain. I am the designated driver because Tommy will be loopy and I have night blindness. I can't see anything when I drive at night and Tommy will be just this side of drunk. It is raining very hard by the time Tommy is able to leave the hospital. It is after 9 p.m. and an hour drive in good weather. He was not a happy camper with my driving but he really didn't want to walk. We made it home. We needed to get up early the next morning and go back to the VA for a blood draw and another procedure. The dr. ordered a CMP lab work up in two days. Thank God he did. To be continued...

The Pissy Mood of a Blessed Woman. . .

   This lady is in a really pissy mood tonight. Don't let the photo to left fool you. If you saw her this minute, you would wonder how it is possible the happy lady in the photo can be so sad. It was made the same day she started this blog.  The happy lady doesn't know the answer, however, she is sad for sure. She knows life is full of unanswered questions. That is part of being human. We are not built to know the way the story ends. Why would we ever want to know? Few people read the end of a much anticipated book before they read the beginning. If we knew the ending how could we ever enjoy the adventure of the book to its fullest? We couldn't. It is the same truth in being alive. Never take for granted a long amazing drive to destinations unknown. Perhaps if we did, we would no longer value the bits of magic life offers at unusual random times. They would become something ordinary or something we expect or think we deserve. It would be so sad for a moonlight walk on the beach to become mundane. I would hate for kisses to hurt or a hug to cause my loved one to wince in pain. I want many more adventures before we arrive at our final destination. I want to laugh until I cry tears of joy. Most of all, I want Tommy to be well and pain-free.  And that my friend is the one thing I cannot fix.