Send My Conscience Home in a Taxi

Sorry, this is somewhat old news, I don't get onto my blog as often as I should.

Deb and I picked up some epic food poisoning, or possibly gastro, on the weekend of the 22nd and 23rd. We thought at first it was something we ate whilst at Healesville Sanctuary, but all we had there were some sandwiches we'd taken with us, the only suspect item in them being hummus, which is not known for that sort of thing. We did joke that maybe we'd caught it from a wallaby.

Turned out later that a little boy who came to visit us, and his parents, both had the same thing, so we probably picked it up from snotty kisses from him!

It kicked in for both of us about 10PM, almost at the same time. I was feeling a bit gurgly so I got up, had some epic diarrhoea. Then I had what Henry Rollins described as "that little voice in your head" the one that says "Be prepared because you might be ready to throw up!" Deb got out of bed a the same time, and was stuck in the loo when the Voice proved to be correct! I made it as far as the laundry sink before I lost my lunch. Literally, that's what made me think it was the sandwiches.

We were still feeling a bit crap at 2AM. Usually we'd ride these things out, but Deb is 21 weeks pregnant, and we ended up calling the Royal Women's, where we'll be delivering this baby, at about 2AM. They said we should come in.

Somehow I dragged some clothes and shoes on, and dragged my sorry arse out to the car. Deb trailed behind me, carrying a bucket just in case! We were both feeling equally crappy, but I at least wasn't nauseous so I drove.

They admitted us pretty quickly at the Royal Women's emergency, Deb was one of two patients waiting. I went to move the car from the short term parking outside the emergency room to, eventually, a spot on the street that was good till 7.30AM. By the time I wandered back they'd admitted Deb, and she'd done a technicolor yawn into the bucket!

They wired her up to an IV and checked the baby's heart beat. Which was fine, we'd only been sick for a few hours so it wasn't like the bub had time to get distressed. The fluid went into her arm really fast. I tried to sleep a bit on two chairs and a pillow, without much success.

After Deb had already absorbed two thirds of the litre of fluid, she made me take myself next door to the Royal Melbourne emergency room because I looked like death. The Royal Women's couldn't treat me because, as the nurse put it, I didn't have boobs!

I dragged myself to the Royal Melbourne. It must have been about 4AM by this point. They gave me an anti-nausea drug and told me to wait. Which is typical of my (limited) experience of emergency rooms - I wasn't bleeding to death, so they got me to sit down.

There's nothing more depressing than an emergency room at 4AM. There were maybe five other people there, several of whom were trying to sleep. I sat around for the better part of two hours, listening to the same news headlines over and over on the droning TV. For the record, I don't care about Kate's boobs.

I ended up trying to get comfortable lying on a set of three seats, which I'm almost certain were specifically designed to make this difficult. Eventually, around 6AM, Deb was discharged from the Royal Women's, and I was still waiting to be seen. Fairly typical of an emergency room - the first and only time I was ever admitted via emergency was when I had a kidney stone in 2009, and that was quick partly because I was in terrible pain and partly because I was admitted to a private hospital. Which I regretted later when I got the bill!

I entertained myself while I waited in my usual way - tweeting. It was interesting, in a way, to see the people I follow who are in other timezones tweeting away. And the number of my people who I know here who were awake and tweeting at 5AM.

I went and asked the charge nurse where I was in the queue. I'd made it up to second spot. But since I hadn't barfed in about eight hours and my digestion was sort of under control, I took my leave of the hospital and Deb and I dragged ourselves home. I got back into bed about 7AM, which is typically when I get up!

We slept for most of Monday, only getting up to go to a long scheduled ultrasound. In all I think we spent about 18 hours in bed that day.

evildoom_bunny sprained something in her ankle last night. She and stillbeing were off at some nightclub (I would have gone but I was knackered) where SOMEONE was dancing in her platform shoes... Read all about it over at Evil Doom's LJ, complete with pictures!

So there I was lying in bed at about 2AM, should have been going to sleep, but I was playing with my nerd phone when it rang... It was stillbeing. We had one of those stilted conversations you have when one person is in a very noisy place, anyway, I was talked into rescuing evildoom_bunny from the city. It's in the Boyfriend manual - the chapter about "rescuing GF in distress will earn you relationship brownie points." :-) Threw on some clothes and drove into the city, to find the patient and a bunch of helpful Goths on the doorstep of a club on King Street - Fun!

evildoom_bunny wanted to go to the emergency room, I was reluctant knowing that we'd probably be stuck there all night - it was nearly 3AM at this point. Suggested we put some ice on it and take it to a clinic in the morning. But her ankle looked pretty swollen, and if something was busted, well, that'd wipe out all the relationship brownie points wouldn't it? :-)

St. Vincents was the closest hospital, so we all piled into my car and pulled up at the front door - or at least as close as we could get. stillbeing went in to get a wheelchair, which we popped the patient into, and then proceeded to get it jammed on the gutter!

Went looking for a more permanent parking spot, and was delighted to find one that I just had to turn around to get into!

The place was surprisingly quiet, from my limited (possibly zero) experience of emergency rooms. evildoom_bunny was dragged off fairly quickly to get an X-Ray, and stillbeing were almost bored to tears watching infomercials on the television there.

Slowly a motley crew of other characters turned up, although it turned out that most of them were with people in the ward, and not actually patients. There was a bunch of guys who looked like they were from one of the fun outer eastern suburbs. And at least two groups of young Asians. Including one guy, and his mates, who looked he'd done almost the same thing to his ankle as evildoom_bunny. A couple, of which the woman seemed to be hyperventilating. And three other guys of other guys who my be politely described as from a lower socio-economic background...

The most dramatic entrance was a guy who came jogging in and told a panicked story about a woman in a car outside. He had really odd diction - turned out he and the four other people he was with - including the woman in the car - were all hearing impaired, we watched them signing there in the waiting room with us.

Whoever it was they brought in was in a state - the whole place emptied for about twenty minutes before they could get her in. She seemed to be having convulsions and was doing some inhuman screaming! Not sure what was wrong with her, although were did see some cops inside. I was mostly concerned that it's all freak out evildoom_bunny. Anyway, they must have sedated her because she quietened down - to the obvious relief of the staff.

We wanted to go visit evildoom_bunny, but felt a bit like they had more important things to deal with than us. After things had calmed down a little, they let us into bed 23 where the Patient was. She was on her side in a bed, almost snoozing. We'd been there at least an hour and a half by this point. Eventually a doctor turned up and told us she hadn't broken anything, but had pulled a major ligament. Sometime after this, the nurse turned up again, with an elastic bandage to help hold down the swelling.

By this time there was a new screaming patient. The nurse seemed quite resigned about it - this was a typical Saturday night it would seem. Apparently the screaming patient was having a bad reaction GHB, which might well have been what Screamer One had been on as well. Note to self: continue staying away from the hard drugs!!!!!

And that was it - we tried to teach evildoom_bunny how to use crutches, which she still hasn't got the hang of. I noted that almost all the injuries and events in the emergency room seemed to be related to night clubs - the ankles, the drugs etc.!

Oh, one last detail. Well, two. stillbeing and I used the vending machines to acquire a really, really bad cup of instant hot chocolate, and wandered out to get some air. The main entrance to the hospital is right next to emergency. It had two odd things: a display of model railways on either side of it. And at least four people sleeping on the chairs in the foyer - complete with hospital blankets! It was quite an odd sight, I can only assume they weren't patients, perhaps they were relatives or friends who'd miss the last train. Really, I have no idea...

Anyway, we hobbled up the stairs to my flat and got to bed around 6AM. We should have just stayed up to watch the sunrise! Today I went out and bought supplies for the Patient: Ice, pineapple donuts, computer speakers, nice bread, a cushion, and of course Neurophen Plus!

Shit, I need some sleep :-)