What a ride

Carl has been notorious for Sat the 14th bad luck. I guess that proves that he is a day behind. Anyway, I got my turn with his bad luck, but it did start on Friday the 13th. About 5 PM on the 13th I got a call from my doctor. I have an elevated blood level that we have been watching. She was concerned that it was still elevated and wanted me in the hospital. Of course it was Friday afternoon so we could not contact my SLC dr so he could give his input and help make hospital arrangements.  

My dr and I discussed whether I would go to the Elko hospital or go to SLC. I told her that since I had 4 medical app'ts in SLC starting on Monday, I would like to go over there. I also wanted to be in Salt Lake since this was not a common problem. She had no problem with that but stressed that I needed to get to the hospital soon. In fact she asked if I could leave in like 5 minutes. She was concerned with kidney failure. I told her I would be at the University Hospital in Salt Lake the next day. Sharon told me that I should be at the hospital in the morning so I wouldn't spend all night in the ER while they decided what to do. It made sense to me so I packed up and headed out at 8:30. Trish was kind enough to let me crash at her house in the middle of the night. Thanks to Lance and Steph for talking to me while I drove over to help keep me awake. It made the drive go quick too.

I woke up Sat morning and laid in bed for a while thinking how tired I was. Then I decided that I had just as well get up and get it over with or at least get started.

Trish promised me a ride to the hospital with lights and sirens. She was the siren. RRRRRRRRRRRRR  RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR    RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR  I was the lights (dang budget cuts).  Traffic was light and we thought we could cut the lights and sirens but then Trish decided to run a red light in downtown Salt Lake. We were forced to go with lights and sirens again. We were prepared that if she got pulled over, we would just explain that we were on our way to the hospital. That should have been obvious with the lights and sirens.

We arrived at the hospital safely, but that wasn't really Trish's fault. We stopped to take a couple of pictures.  

We were trying to decide which one of us should be the patient.  It's been many years since I have been in the hospital, but my experience still paid off.   I WON!!!!

Then the wait began. There was a sign on the wall explaining the dress code. Purple is house keeping, red or blue are CNAs or admitting people, white is nurses and black is doctor. We waited 2 to 3 hours for someone in  black. She finally found me!!!  (Yes, our family spends way too much time in hospitals. I'm trying to be serious and talk to the dr and Trish pulls out the camera).  I thought if we were obnoxius enough, they would get us out quicker, but I think my nurse was actually quite entertained by us.

Sorry that this picture is not centered. Molly fixed them for me but this one was out of order so I moved it but couldn't get it centered. (Don't yell at me Molly).

The doctor's decision was that since my kidney function is totally normal, they had nothing to warrant hospitalization. So after spending over 5 hrs in the ER, they sent me home. 

But not before we got to eat. Yep, that is a $1,000 box lunch that I am eating. Trish is eating one also. That's what I got for my $2,000 + visit. Oh and they gave me an IV also.  

This is what I did when I got back to Trish's house. You will notice that I had some company also.

After a rest, I was ready for dinner. Trish was grilling zucchini. I gave her a little help. You might notice the spatula in one hand and the other hand turning the zucchini. Yep. If you use the spatula, the zucchini fall through the grill but Trish insisted that I have a spatula.

I need to thank Lance and Molly for giving me lessons on getting my pictures on the blog. Now hopefully I will get other pictures on here so I don't forget how to do it. Molly and Lance almost wrote the captions on here for me. Maybe that will be a project for another day.

Oh and stay tuned. This is just the 1st installment in my report of my dr visits in Salt Lake. Don't worry about me, I feel fine. I have follow-up tests scheduled in a couple of weeks.