The ER Saga

Last night at 7:30 I set mom up with her feet in a bucket of warm water. (She needed a pedicure and I was the person for the job.) The boys got Chicken Run all set up and the five of us settled in to watch it.

At 7:50, my phone rang. It was Aunt Debbie telling us that Matt was in the ER because of infection, and could we go down and make sure everything was OK.

We were in the car by 8:00 and to the hospital by somewhere around 8:30. We walked in to find Matt in a chair, some girl, anda guy I didn't recognize leaning on crutches. My first thought was, "Gosh, broken legs seem to be catching among Matt's friends if this guy's got one too..."

Then I realized the guy was just holding the crutches for Matt and I felt like a gomer.

The chair Matt was sitting in was under an air conditioning vent, so at 9:00 we began the first step of re-arranging the ER waiting room (which wasn't overly large OR aesthetic). We moved Matt over to an available chair that Joey and Alex had cordoned off. They then stood guard of the broken leg until we were able to find a second chair to prop his leg up on.

At 9:30, the "broken leg" friend and his wife left, leaving us with Matt. We were filled with naive ideas of quick, decent service, and a doctor for Matt.

At about 10:15 we grabbed some more chairs and moved them over by Matt, forming the beginnings of our little commune. Unfortunately, we were right by the entrance so whenever a new patient would walk in, we'd be the first ones to receive the germs.

At 11:00, The Kid and I got thirsty, bored and tired. So we went to Walmart.

The Walmart was an experience. (We have since dubbed it "Shadymart"; we know it real well as we were there about three times over the course of the next 5 hours.) After going around the store three times, The Kid and I got a location on everything on our list and tried to check out.

The Kid wanted bubblemint gum (GROSS), so I bought him some. He's so spoiled.

We headed back to el hospitalo with our games, coloring books, water bottles, and bookends (those we left in the car, we didn't think they'd be very entertaining) and went back inside. Somewhere in the last moments we'd managed to commandeer a couple more chairs and a little table, so we set out to learn how to play Skip-Bo, our newly purchased game from Shadymart.

After several rousing (read: confusing) attempts at Skip-bo, Mom, The Kid and I scrapped the first game and reshuffled the deck to include the Joey. Over the next hour we had one of the ER patients come join our commune (which had now become an oval that was causing traffic flow problems) and everybody within earshot (oh wait, the whole ER) was watching us play Skip-Bo.

That and we were super loud.

Pops got in on the Skip-bo game and started winning which made him real pleased and the rest of us sore losers. (This could be due primarily to the fact that it was now 1:30 a.m. and poor Matt was STILL sitting in a chair in the ER waiting room. He'd arrived at 8:00 that evening and we were told that the average wait in the Dallas area was 6 hours. Our hopes were dwindling.)

I wheeled our new friend Clare (the Skip-bo player) out to her car several times to visit her Pomeranian puppy she kept in there (he ate like a pound of grapes over the course of the evening). Each time I'd come back in I'd hope Matt would be gone.
He wasn't.

Somewhere in between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m. Mom and Clare got into a discussion which culminated in Clare accepting Jesus and Joey, The Kid and I running BACK to Shadymart to buy Clare a Bible.

(We saw a whole bunch of children in Shadymart which really ticked us off--those parents should have had them at home and in bed!)

To our great joy and delight, Pops and Matt were gone when we walked into the waiting room!

And then they came out of the bathroom just a few moments later. Our disappointment was extreme.

The Kid and I colored elaborate pictures of puppies and pirates for the next hour. AT 4:00 A.M. THEY FINALLY CALLED MATT BACK TO SEE THE DOCTOR!!! Sportsfans, that's 8 hours that he's been sitting there with a severely broken leg that isn't yet in a cast and is infected.

The nurse called "Richardson" and we all stopped what we were doing. I was afraid she wouldn't see us (Matt was moving kind of slow) so I hollered "RIGHT HERE" and pointed at Matt. The nurse gave me a Look. I returned it in my mind but was too tired (and thought better of it) to give her a real Look.