Through dangers untold, and hardships unnumbered − 8 July, 2007
Mom was in the hospital, and I had to drive more than 400 miles of I-75 to get there.
I think I've said before that Georgia is a beautiful state. Well, except for one part: the roads. South Georgia has been "under construction" for the past 15 years. Somehow, they have managed to make I-75 even worse than I-95.
Now, I was already under a lot of stress. I've dreaded this moment for years: the call, the ride to the hospital, the long wait. I knew it would happen someday, but it just seemed too soon.
Driving through seven long construction zones -- and Atlanta traffic -- didn't help any. Between the Florida border and Macon alone, there were five, and each of them was about 30 to 50 miles long. The speed limit was, supposedly, 50 in most places.
Well, I drive the speed limit, or as close to it as I can without getting run over. The idiocy of it was that no one else was going even close to the limit -- I was being passed by semis going 70 in most places. And near Atlanta, there was the even bigger moron parade: idiots in big ugly pickups towing boats, at 80 mph, zipping in and out of traffic like Han Solo flying through an asteroid field.
Just what you need when your nerves are stretched tight anyway. I took the photo below (georgia) on my cell phone to send to my wife, to let her know I'd crossed the border. I really have ambiguous feelings about it, now -- I can't say I felt too welcome.
Finally I made it to LaFayette. My Dad met me at their house, and he drove us both to the hospital.
My Mom was staying in Hutcheson Medical Center, the nearest hospital, about 19 miles away (hospital photo below). Between LaFayette and the hospital is the Chickamauga Battlefield, a park commemorating a Civil War battle. That's why, when you enter the hospital, you see something you'd think would be completely out of place at a medical center: cannons (see photo).
Ten hours after starting north, I finally made it to Mom.
She wasn't in the best of spirits.
The staff at the hospital had given her a video to watch to prepare her for her upcoming angiogram. Here's the procedure:
You're on a bed, in a very cold room. Still awake; you don't get to be knocked out for this. The doctor threads a catheter through your leg all the way to your heart, by way of the femoral artery. Did I mention you're still wide awake and can feel all of this? Then, when they get to the heart, they inject some dye to make the arteries more visible on the X-rays. Apparently, the dye burns a bit.
Or so the video said.
Mom had already watched it, so she played it for me and Dad.
"Holy crap," I said.
[ My family is not very good at hiding reactions. We don't play poker. ]
So now the long wait. Mom had been in the hospital since Friday evening. She wouldn't get the test until tomorrow, Monday morning, at 10 am. Despite what you might think about hospitals and cleanliness, she was in the same gown she'd been in for the past 48 hours.
Also, as soon as you get put in the hospital, what do they do? Stick you with an IV line. She was hooked up to one of those irritating IV monitors that beeps every time you move, change position, cross your eyes, or think of the word "Belgium."
Which, of course, is a problem when you have to go to the bathroom.
Mom, though, is a character. She got so irritated with her IV monitor she gave it a name: clyde (photo below). From then on, whenever she had to move from place to place, it was "Come on, Clyde." [I think the name refers to an old Ray Stephens song, "Ahab the Arab". See, the obscure reference thing is hereditary.]
So there we were: waiting. Mom kept wanting to go home. Wrong answer: I didn't say it, but I kept thinking about heart attacks and strokes. If something was clogging up an artery (an odd parallel to my trip up I-75), I didn't want it breaking loose with her 19 miles away from help.
But still, when you're trying to get an upcoming angiogram off your mind, a hospital's not the place to be.
Story continues tomorrow.
I think I've said before that Georgia is a beautiful state. Well, except for one part: the roads. South Georgia has been "under construction" for the past 15 years. Somehow, they have managed to make I-75 even worse than I-95.
Now, I was already under a lot of stress. I've dreaded this moment for years: the call, the ride to the hospital, the long wait. I knew it would happen someday, but it just seemed too soon.
Driving through seven long construction zones -- and Atlanta traffic -- didn't help any. Between the Florida border and Macon alone, there were five, and each of them was about 30 to 50 miles long. The speed limit was, supposedly, 50 in most places.
Well, I drive the speed limit, or as close to it as I can without getting run over. The idiocy of it was that no one else was going even close to the limit -- I was being passed by semis going 70 in most places. And near Atlanta, there was the even bigger moron parade: idiots in big ugly pickups towing boats, at 80 mph, zipping in and out of traffic like Han Solo flying through an asteroid field.
Just what you need when your nerves are stretched tight anyway. I took the photo below (georgia) on my cell phone to send to my wife, to let her know I'd crossed the border. I really have ambiguous feelings about it, now -- I can't say I felt too welcome.
Finally I made it to LaFayette. My Dad met me at their house, and he drove us both to the hospital.
My Mom was staying in Hutcheson Medical Center, the nearest hospital, about 19 miles away (hospital photo below). Between LaFayette and the hospital is the Chickamauga Battlefield, a park commemorating a Civil War battle. That's why, when you enter the hospital, you see something you'd think would be completely out of place at a medical center: cannons (see photo).
Ten hours after starting north, I finally made it to Mom.
She wasn't in the best of spirits.
The staff at the hospital had given her a video to watch to prepare her for her upcoming angiogram. Here's the procedure:
You're on a bed, in a very cold room. Still awake; you don't get to be knocked out for this. The doctor threads a catheter through your leg all the way to your heart, by way of the femoral artery. Did I mention you're still wide awake and can feel all of this? Then, when they get to the heart, they inject some dye to make the arteries more visible on the X-rays. Apparently, the dye burns a bit.
Or so the video said.
Mom had already watched it, so she played it for me and Dad.
"Holy crap," I said.
[ My family is not very good at hiding reactions. We don't play poker. ]
So now the long wait. Mom had been in the hospital since Friday evening. She wouldn't get the test until tomorrow, Monday morning, at 10 am. Despite what you might think about hospitals and cleanliness, she was in the same gown she'd been in for the past 48 hours.
Also, as soon as you get put in the hospital, what do they do? Stick you with an IV line. She was hooked up to one of those irritating IV monitors that beeps every time you move, change position, cross your eyes, or think of the word "Belgium."
Which, of course, is a problem when you have to go to the bathroom.
Mom, though, is a character. She got so irritated with her IV monitor she gave it a name: clyde (photo below). From then on, whenever she had to move from place to place, it was "Come on, Clyde." [I think the name refers to an old Ray Stephens song, "Ahab the Arab". See, the obscure reference thing is hereditary.]
So there we were: waiting. Mom kept wanting to go home. Wrong answer: I didn't say it, but I kept thinking about heart attacks and strokes. If something was clogging up an artery (an odd parallel to my trip up I-75), I didn't want it breaking loose with her 19 miles away from help.
But still, when you're trying to get an upcoming angiogram off your mind, a hospital's not the place to be.
Story continues tomorrow.
georgia
hospital
cannon
clyde
