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| Emergency packing for any occasion |
Saturday morning felt like football. The air was cool, the sun bright. A gentle breeze kicked up from the north. I knew it was a false autumn. Like false springs, we have several each year. After temperatures over 9o since June, any reprieve was welcome, however fleeting. That it came on gameday Saturday was a bonus.
Since my teens, I’ve viewed Texas football games like a kid sees Christmas. The night before is restless and filled with anticipation followed by an early morning of anxious butterflies. Which was the case Saturday. I was bustling about the house, trying to be productive without waking my wife and daughter who both find getting out of bed voluntarily before 8:00 on a Saturday to be ridiculous.
The move by Texas to the Southeastern Conference (It Just Means More!) was a definite upping of the ante, but it was an early-season non-conference game that captured my attention. Going to Ann Arbor in Week 2 to play the defending national champion Wolverines in The Big House screamed big time. It seemed like a bellwether game, which of course, remains to be seen.
I finished the previous evening’s dishes, took out the recycling bin, and started a load of laundry. The game kicked off at 11 am my time which was still two hours away. I showered, got dressed, and went out to run a quick errand.
When I returned home, my wife was awake but not feeling well. She complained of a bad stomach, seemingly the product of takeout burritos from the evening prior. We treated the symptoms with the usual array of over-the-counter remedies–Pepto Bismol and Pepcid. Not only were these ineffective, they seemed to spread the pain. My wife cited the discomfort encircling her chest at the bottom of her sternum.
My mother-in-law, a retired nurse, is our family’s answer to WebMD. She’s more accurate if less concise. She recommended aspirin–the one pill or elixir we did not have in our rambling, disheveled medicine cabinet. I was sent on another errand, 11 am now bearing down like a freight train.
Through my burnt orange fog, I arrived at the realization that an aspirin was highly unlikely to alleviate what was inflicting such pain on my wife. She would require a trip to the emergency room.
At that moment.
Fifteen minutes before kickoff.
For the better part of the day (if history is any indication).
I believe what happened next is irrefutable proof of my maturity and development as a human being. In the past, this would have called for a ride from a parent or sibling. I might offer a drop-off, if time allowed. This didn’t stem from a lack of concern. It’s just, this was a big game and it’s not like I could help. The doctors wouldn’t need anything from me. I would just be in the way or waiting. And, I rather wait while watching the football game.
After nearly 21 years of marriage, I knew better. Plus, though I don’t necessarily fear karma, I maintain a healthy apprehension toward it. I could see it all play out–I’d stay home to watch football while my wife spent Saturday in the emergency room, suffering intolerable pain from an undetermined source. She’d have something serious or could have at least been comforted or galvanized by having me at her side. Instead, I would be the selfish, asshole husband. And Texas would end up losing the game, compounding my distress.
Resigned to reality and principle, I put the essentials in my backpack. A book, notebook, pen, laptop, iPhone, AirPods, Diet Pepsi, Yeti full of ice water. I could listen to the radio play-by-play of the game on the internet.
A lesser-known emergency facility exists about ten minutes from our home. It doesn't get the traffic of the metropolitan clinics, so we hoped for more prompt attention. Taking non-cardio chest pain into Tulsa would have placed my wife in the lower tier of emergencies. In the city, you wait in line behind burn victims, tight-lipped dudes with gunshot wounds, and a guy walking in with a Furi kitchen knife dangling from his neck.
* * * *
The decision was a good one. My wife was registered right away and less than five minutes later, we were ushered to a treatment room. I was seated with AirPods in place for kickoff. It wasn’t optimal but would suffice. My wife seemed glad I was with her.
Service was prompt. In fact, my wife’s appearance seemed to break the monotony of an uneventful Saturday morning. Attacking the intense pain first, morphine was introduced intravenously. Soon, my wife was no longer in pain. She expressed her gratitude toward me for accompanying her and apologized for causing me to miss the football game. Texas had taken an early lead, so I assured her I was happy to help however I could.
With the pain controlled, the medical team could search for the culprit. High-end entrees were ordered, namely an Ultrasound and a CT scan. I imagined a large number appearing on my next insurance statement next to the dreaded phrase, “patient responsibility.” It was similar to one of my wife and my early dates. We were at an upscale bar where they had live jazz and a humidor. There was no Guinness, but they had a dark ale unbeknownst to me at the time called Chimay. I’d never tried it before, so I ordered one. The results were predictable.
“Hey! This is good. I’ll have five or six more!” Soon our tab looks like the rolling debt clock on the Bank of America Tower in Manhattan.
When I had food poisoning, my wife sat in the treatment room with me, watching “Two and a Half Men” on a small television with a sketchy vertical hold. Guest seating was much better here. My wife had been confined to a chrome and plastic stacker–the kind they set up in the school cafeteria for PTA meetings. I waited in a well-padded oversized reading chair.
The attending nurse was terrific. Upon learning I was listening to a football game she handed me the remote control for the treatment room television and invited me to turn it on. I had a dark, cool room and the game on television. It wasn’t too different from being at home. At halftime, I walked across the street to the convenience store for a bottle of soda.
The test results were quick. As we’d suspected, gallstones were the culprit. Referral to a specialist and a litany of drugs were offered. The possibility of gallbladder removal loomed. As we’ve met our deductible, likely before the end of December.
My wife was feeling much better, and her release was imminent. Her nurse continued to be awesome offering to slow roll the discharge if I needed to stay for the remainder of the game. My wife was no longer in pain and Texas had opened an insurmountable lead. I was relieved on both counts. I told the nurse we could listen to garbage time in the car on the way home.
For whatever reason, I found parallels between the treatment room and sports bar. It may come across as conceited, but I don’t like sports bars. I like sports–or some of them anyway, and I like bars–some of them, anyway. However, I prefer to keep them mutually exclusive. The idea of people dressed in their teams’ colors, drinking heavily, and yelling at a television screen doesn’t appeal to me. I’d much rather do that at home.
As far as I can recall, I’ve only watched one game in a bar. That was Halloween, 1998 when Texas played at Nebraska. My sister and I were in Dallas to see the Stars play the Red Wings. I insisted we remain in an erstwhile bar in the erstwhile West End Marketplace until the conclusion of the game. That wasn’t a sports bar, per se, and the Longhorns won, making it bearable. My sister was upset as we had to jog to Reunion Arena to get seated in time for warmups, but the Stars won a thriller, so we all went home happy.
Given my druthers, I’d still rather watch from the comfort of my own sofa. This despite the extraordinary service of the staff at the hospital. Unlike a traditional bar, we didn’t get the check before leaving. That will come in the mail sometime between now and next June and will likely be significant. As far as a more immediate souvenir, I didn’t get a collector glass or a T-shirt, I took home Covid.
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