Emergency room

    Do not be alarmed. We spent all last evening in the emergency room, but it was something less than a nerve-wracking experience. Dad simply wasn't getting any stronger four days after his procedure Wednesday and wanted to get some tests done to make sure there wasn't something unobvious causing the problem. He also figured that if he needed to be in the hospital for a couple of days, this would be the best time since he doesn't have dialysis until Tuesday. So we called 9-1-1.
    "He's really, really, really weak" isn't the usual emergency call, but I guess "He's 91" and "He's diabetic" helped. Anyway, they sent an ambulance. The attendants were really great and managed to maneuver him out of the house in spite of the tight doorways. They thought he might be having heart problems and wouldn't let him walk, but they managed to get the walker with a chair seat to him and then to get him to the front room where the stretcher was.
    At the hospital, I got press-ganged into getting him checked in, so I missed most of the action, such as it was. They drew blood and went away, basically. Far away, apparently. Eventually the room nurse came around and gave him a saline IV, but that was about it. Later a male nurse (well, Dad thought he was a doctor, but I'm not sure) came to tell us that Dad's labs were fine, there was nothing out of line except that his creatine was a little high. His heart function was in line with what it had been at his last appointment at the Heart Hospital. He wanted to know what we wanted to do.
    We explained that he was too weak to function in his house, and we hoped he could check in until he was stronger. We also explained about the procedure Wednesday and that weakness afterwards was in line with out experience a couple of weeks earlier, but that recovery hadn't taken this long then. And we noted that Dad thought he had heard one of the doctors during the procedure telling somebody to give Dad morphine and we wondered if that could be affecting him.
    He said that morphine goes through the body very fast, even if you're relatively inactive. He said that he doubted that a couple of days in the hospital would get Dad up and dancing miraculously, and said he'd go talk to Dad's doctors and see if they could authorize checking him in.
    A year later he came back to say that the doctors were fine with him being admitted (that's the phrase, isn't it?), but that there was a good chance that insurance and the government would decline to pay since there were no test results to say that he particularly needed to be in the hospital. He asked what we wanted to do. Dad looked at me. I said, "Well you're the rich one." Dad said he would just go home then. The fellow said he would get that cleared away and tell the nurse to call an ambulance.
    Two years later, we started getting antsy. I asked and the nurse said that the ambulance had been called. My best guess is that nobody was lazy or incompetent; they just had to get all the paperwork (and billing) squared away before they could call. Anyway, leaving exaggeration behind, it was about an hour between him saying he would tell the nurse to call and the nurse actually calling, and then it was another hour before the ambulance actually came.
    This set of attendants was really great, too. They got Dad all the way to the living room and his favorite seat, and he was feeling stronger and better at the end of the ordeal than at the start. I left him getting ready to eat cake. He accepts that if he doesn't get better soon, he will need to have a doctor declare him homebound and get home health care (which the gubmint will pay for). Hopefully not necessary, but I'm glad he recognizes this.
    One thing: if I have to choose between a nerve-wracking night in the emergency room and being bored stupid there, I'll choose the latter every time.