Down, but not out

Published 9:26 pm Saturday, December 17, 2005

The Espy household in November was a lot like 14th century Europe, plague stricken, destitute and miserable.

Baby Rowan emitted a continuos stream of colorful and viscous liquids.

Wife Alison, who has always flaunted her good health, fell victim to a stomach disorder of a particularly disgusting sort.

And as for me, it was the usual November hell — a smorgasbord of brain-splitting headaches, tumbling stomachs, bogged sinuses and creaking joints. The usual.

At month’s end I told myself, “Self, it can’t get any worse.” Wrong.

A week later I was in an ambulance on the way to the Hamilton Medical Center emergency room.

My distress started on a Monday afternoon. As I told the newsroom staff my one millionth “when I was in college” story, I noticed an uncomfortable bubbling in my tummy, tum-tum.

Like a beaker on the work table of a mad scientist, my stomach bubbled, dribbled and popped. This was not good so I decided to go home.

By the time wrestling came on that evening, my gut was under direct assault while my left hip and rib area grew increasingly painful.

I went to bed at about 9:30 p.m., but pilfered only a few hours of sleep. The next day, I begged off work for a few hours to go the clinic where the reliable and efficient Dr. Martin Eichler gave me a once over.

Apparently I did not come up to specs, which did not surprise me because I had spent most of the day grabbing my aching side and gargling Pepto Bismol.

However, I was surprised when Dr. Eichler opted to ship me off to the emergency room. A longtime heart patient with a finicky ticker, I am at risk for “the Big One” as Fred Sanford used to call it, so I shouldn’t have been surprised. I felt like I’d been beaten up by motorcycle gang, but I guess I never considered myself the kind of fellow who went anywhere in an ambulance.

Being 10-feet tall, bullet-proof and eternally youthful, I reasoned that ambulances were for aging sick folk, not ubermen like me.

Wrong.

Following the time-tested medical diktat “Better safe than a corpse” I agreed to lie still for the ambulance trip.

What a gyp!

They didn’t even turn on the siren. No flashing lights. No squealing of the tires and no high speed ride.

In fact, the only thing fast about the whole episode was the rapidity with which the ambulance service billed me.

I took my little trip on Tuesday, stayed in the hospital for two nights and went home on Thursday. The bill arrived the next day.

$487!!!

No. I didn’t put the decimal point in the wrong place. It cost me $487 to get from Airport Road to the hospital, during which the EMT, a fine fellow to be sure, attached an IV doey to my hand.

I’m not saying it wasn’t a fine IV doey. In fact, it was probably a top notch doey. But $487 seems a bit much for it, particularly since they didn’t even run any red lights!

My stay at the hospital was largely uneventful. I was treated well in the emergency room, where a lot of very dedicated, very decent, very tired people work.

God bless ‘em every one, even the crabby guy.

In my hospital room they plugged a lot of stuff into my arms and gave me some really good dope to cut the pain. If you are one of those people who naively wonders why some people consume a lot of dope, I’ll let you in on a little secret.

Dope is good stuff — at least it is when in its absence it feels like a Japanese soldier is shoving a rusty bayonet in your rib cage.

The best part of my stay at HMC was that I lived to tell the tale. Dying would definitely have put a damper on things.

I’m not back to 100 percent yet, but am feeling much better. I expect to be around a little longer — at least until the bill for the doctors and the room and the bad chicken and old grapes and the good dope comes.

That’ll probably finish me off.