Part Eight

 Wednesday, Feb.29th (Leap Day) Later on that day......

Now, I'm sure most of you have experienced the reality show that takes place in the ER. It's ALWAYS a nightmare!! There's ALWAYS a long waiting period. There's ALWAYS at least one person looking really, and i mean really effed up. Like they need to be seen like STAT! And for some reason, there's ALWAYS someone moaning out loud. Basically...... this place sucks! No denying. As I continued waiting for my name to be called there was this guy sitting across from me, on the verge of passing out, who was either extremely drugged up or heavily inebriated. A hot mess, indeed. Over the loud speaker we hear "Jose (can't remember the last name called) They repeated the name a few times. The guy is out cold at this point. I take my crutch and tap the guy on his foot to wake him. I asked "Hey, are you Jose?" He wakens and looks at me and with a drunken slur in his voice says "Me? Jose? Nah......I'll tell you who I am" Then, in his semi-slumped position sings out loud "Joooossseeee, caaan youuuu seeeee, byyyy the dawn's earrrrly  liiiight, etc, etc" The dude used the name Jose to start off the Star Spangled Banner. And he was making an effort to do it in key. So, I did what any other normal person would've done....I laughed my ass off! By the way, turned out his name wasn't Jose after all.
 After a very,very long time of more waiting, my girlfriend decided to threaten them with a lawsuit if I wasn't seen within 20 minutes. Seventeen minutes later I hear over the loud speaker "Hakim Wilson". And off to a room I go. After the blood tests, they prescribed me with Coumadin. And also Lovenox for self injections. They told me to inject myself twice a day. One in the morning. One in the evening. Take the Coumadin once a day. The Coumadin takes several days to take effect in your blood, so the Lovenox injections are to thin the blood temporarily, but instantly. They didn't want to take any chances with waiting for the Coumadin to kick in days later. So, once being taught how to inject myself in the belly, I finally was able to leave. By the time i got back home, after picking up my prescriptions, it was about 8:00pm.
 My day, that I thought was only going to be 2 hrs or so,turned out to be almost a 9 hour day. Man, what a day! It was just crappy news after crappy news. But the one good thing I can take out of all of this is: Damn am I glad that I mentioned the soreness behind my knee!! Who knows what could've happened if I had never said anything?? Me barely bitchin' about that pain perhaps could've saved my life in the long run. I've since learned a bit more about blood clots and how serious they can be. And even sometimes fatal. So, now that I'm thinking about it, maybe it wasn't such a crappy day after all.