Just Shoot Me

by Pa Rock
Delicate Old Fart

Yesterday evening while working in the backyard transplanting volunteer tomato plants in a raised bed, I stepped gingerly over the rock wall, backward, and caught my heel on the wall as I was in motion backing out of the planter.  I hit the ground solidly on my back, felt my old head bounce off of the hard ground at least once, and heard an ominous crack.

It took some doing to get up because of the sharp pain in my shoulder, but I finally managed.  As luck would have it, I was home alone with no way to contact my roommate son, so I finally called son number two who lives 270 miles from my place.     As the injury appeared to be with my right shoulder or arm, I felt that I could not drive myself to the Emergency Room, and Tim gave me sound advice to call an ambulance – which I eventually did.

I phoned 911 and sat on the front porch with my necessities – phone, current book, and basket of meds – waiting for the ambulance.  Somehow I managed to get my two-piece cloth mask on with just my left hand, an almost comical endeavor that took several minutes. 

(My only other experience of riding in an ambulance was late one night in 1999 in the city of Moscow, Russia – an adventure that is covered elsewhere in this blog under the title "Midnight in Moscow.")  

So I am not a hypochondriac, or at least not one who overuses emergency services.

On the ride to the hospital the ambulance attendant who was in the back riding with me asked a couple of questions to make sure I was lucid.  “What is the date?”  To which I replied “Sunday, May 31^st.”    The next one was easier.  “Do you know who the President is?”  I responded “Unfortunately,” and she counted that as a correct answer also.

Personnel at the ER in the local hospital got me in quickly and x-rayed my shoulder.   Soon after that a young doctor came in and informed me that I had broken my right arm, just below the shoulder and that he was going to send me home in a sling with information on how to contact the local orthopedist in the morning.  He said it was a decent break and would not require surgery.

Then I was given a pill and discharged.

An observation in the time of COVID:   I was asked numerous times by several people – including the 911 dispatcher – about any exposure that I might have had to the coronavirus.   I had struggled – and I mean that literally – to get my mask on using only my left hand before the ambulance arrived.  So I was taking the pandemic seriously.

One of the ambulance attendants who also asked about my COVID status was not wearing a mask, and a few of the people who worked with me in the ER were also not wearing masks, though most were.   When I was finally released I still had no way to get home, so the nice lady who discharged me kindly phoned for an Uber.

The young woman who picked me up in her car outside of the ER did not offer to help me and my stuff get into the car, although it had to be obvious that I was in some physical distress - and she was not wearing a mask in her small and confined car.      Later when I over-tipped her with a whole dollar, she looked at me like I was the problem!

Going to the hospital, at least to the one near where I live, can be a dangerous proposition.   The next time I suffer an indignity that leaves me in need of emergency medical help, perhaps the first responder to arrive on the scene will show some mercy and just shoot me!

As you can no doubt readily see, pain makes me bitter!