Pimp Slap Averted

”Dude, if you make your father walk to the hospital in the snow, I'm going to drive up there and pimp slap you.

Rey and other readers will be happy to know that, while my dad and I entertained the notion of walking through a blizzard to visit my mother in the hospital, the weather let up enough by Friday afternoon that I could shovel enough of the driveway to get the car out, and the roads and parking lots were finally clear. I did consider challenging my friend's threat since I haven't seen him since he moved out of state about two years ago, but it wasn't worth ending up with two parents in the hospital.

As for my mom, she's doing much better. My dad called the ICU a few times on Friday morning to ascertain when we'd be able to visit her. I say “we” because the weather was bad enough for my office to close. After making a phone call to a coworker to determine whether I needed to start shoveling, I found out we were not open, and got the number to call for future emergency situations. The hospital is only a few minutes from home, but with messy roads and parking lots it wasn't a practical journey by car. Visiting hours were limited in the ICU, but the nurses told my father that they expected my mom to be in a regular room by the afternoon, as soon as one was available.

By around 1:30, the plows were on the move and the quarter sized snowflakes had been reduced to a fine mist. The snow was soft and sloughing off some of the cars on its own. The hospital had called and given us my mom's room number, so the question of when to visit had been resolved while we decided on how. While my dad cleaned off his car, I shoveled out the base of the driveway where we'd been plowed in. We were then able to drive over the six or seven inches of soft accumulation in the driveway.

The roads weren't bad, and the hospital parking lot was pretty clean as well. As my dad impatiently trundled toward the building, I began to put the wiper blades up so they wouldn't freeze, a state I observed on nearly every other car in the parking lot. “Don't do that! No! Put those down!” shouted my old man, “If you do that, some kids are going to come along and break them, to be wiseguys!” My argument about the other vehicles in the parking lot fell on figuratively deaf ears.

We spent a few hours with my mom, who was in better spirits and health. All her vital signs had normalized, though they're still going to keep her at least another day to run some tests and determine why she had those symptoms in the first place. She was more concerned about the cats and how we were doing, and was surprised I didn't have to go to work. The ICU didn't have windows, so I don't think she saw the worst of the storm.

My dad complained that his heart medication is good for nothing, that neither his patch nor spray give him relief. “Do you give it time to work?” asked my mom, and I had to point out that after putting on his patch, he immediately was outside cleaning off the car. His defense was that he didn't in fact go into the cold right away, and had gone downstairs to get boots and shovels, so the medication had plenty of time to work. I suggested that maybe going up and down stairs shouldn't be part of his definition of “time to work”, and told him to sit with a stopwatch and wait at least five minutes after taking any medication. “If you take an aspirin, does your headache disappear instantly?” He had to admit it usually went away within a half hour. My dad's always been impatient and stubborn, and I doubt I could have prevented him from walking to the hospital had that been a course of action he set his mind to.

“AIyiyi!! Help! HEEEELP! NURSE! Oh I can't breathe! Emergency...EMERGENCY!! I'm DYING!!!” It took a while for anyone to respond to the woman down the hall shouting about breathing difficulty with a suspicious amount of air and volume. Eventually someone came and calmed her down, and gave her a painkiller. She was yelling a few minutes later that it wasn't working while the nurses again patiently explained that it took time. It can't be an easy profession, and as many people panic, there are plenty with legitimate symptoms, so they have to take every concern seriously. I've heard radio DJs Opie & Anthony discuss a few horror stories about 911 operators. In one instance, a little boy was repeatedly told to stop playing jokes when he called to say his mother wasn't breathing. Eventually, he had a call taken seriously, but paramedics arrived too late to save her. More recently, they played a call from an invalid woman whose bed was on fire. They asked if she could stay on hold, and though she said it was an emergency and she couldn't wait, she was put on hold anyway and died in the fire. It might be hard to separate real concerns from jokes or fears, but the safest course of action is to take every cry for help seriously and err on the side of caution.

My mom has a good demeanor and good people skills. She asks questions when various physicians visit her, calmly and with a smile. She'll be glad when it's time to come home, but she's not complaining, letting them help her and do their job. I believe you should treat medical people with the same fear and respect owed to waiters. You don't want anyone to spit in your food, and you want a doctor or nurse to respond promptly when you have a legitimate complaint. Sometimes a good attitude can avert bad treatment. You definitely don't want some random Dominican showing up to pimp slap you.