More ER madness

So dad had an appointment with his GP and reported a fast heartrate; the GP agreed and, at 1:30, we hit the ER to meet up with dad's cardiologist, Dr. Garza. He gets an EKG, he gets a chest X-ray, he gets put on a bed in the hall of the ER (not all in the same hour or in that order, come to think of it). Five hours later, we're waiting for either Garza or Singh, the so-called "cardiology gods," to basically confirm the suspicions of about five other doctors that have looked at dad — namely, that his meds need to be upped to control his heart rate. One of them will write him a new prescription and we're outtie.

Needless to say, I was not prepared to go from a GP appt to the ER and I have no book and am aggressively bored and, because of the fact that I'm bored and scared at the same time I get angry at these hifalutin doctors who think our time isn't worth it and are making us wait five hours. Also, I have to keep going outside to try to reach mom, who never answers her cell and I have to go through the metal detector each time the security guard doesn't keep his eye on me when I'm trying to get decent cell reception (which is blessedly very little time, but honestly). Finally I reach mom, who is with some people from her Sunday School class who have brought dinner. She comes to relieve me.

When she comes into the room dad has been moved to, Dr. Singh is in there with a coterie of little doctors, standing around an old woman who's had some sort of episode and he's doing the "House" thing, making the little doctors call out diagnoses and I'm sure it would be cute as hell if I hadn't thought he was going to look at dad, confirm the diagnosis other doctors have made and give dad some drugs. I figure mom has come at the last moment and dad is soon to be let go (oh yeah, the nurses withheld water from him for a while and he got whiny, but when he got water he felt better). But I get home, eat and watch an episode of "The Office" and talk with a friend back home before I find out the doctors have three ideas about what might be wrong with him. Two of them are pretty terrible situations, I'll describe them like I was "House." (Okay, I've only seen that show once, I'll wing it)

In the first situation, dad has atrial fibrulation. The atria, a sac within the heart, detaches from the heart muscle. It messes up the beat of the heart and speeds it up. It is dangerous. The EKG has already shown this is not what is bothering dad.

In the second, the sac around the heart is filling up with fluid. This is also a grim possibility. An ultrasound (which takes a while) shows this is not the case.

Or, the alternative, dad just needs more meds. Well, there you go. That's what it was. Mom and dad made it home at 10 p.m. Just in time for dad and me to watch the Daily Show and Reno 911. Trudy's getting married to Craig, the Truckee River Killer. That shouldn't be so funny, but it is.

So mom stayed home today and dad slept a lot and everything is fine.

ETA a description of some of dad's more noteworthy fellow sickies. There was an older man with a distended belly who kept bursting out with, "Praise God!" even though he seemed to be in some terrible pain. I overheard him tell a nurse, "I doo-dooed my pants, and it's bad." I never saw anyone un-doo-doo his pants, either. There was a big old redneck guy with a scrape on the back of his head. His lady came in and she was wearing a very revealing shirt and super tight pants and had a silver-blond eighties haircut — you know the mullet that is for very long, limp hair? Where the top part is parted in the middle and kind of brought back in a wave? That's the haircut she had. Also she had a huge tatoo on her chest and back. And boy was her man proud of her. Also, in the waiting room, was the skankiest little crackwhore you ever saw. Even the nurses were talking about her. She looked to have all manner — and I mean *all* manner — of STDs (she had a bump on her forehead, was skinny as anything, her eyes didn't appear to open correctly, and she was dirty, too), she was in a trashy and dirty little miniskirt and tank top ensemble and she was peripatetic. Either she was trying to get comfortable on the chair with a blanket over her or she was wandering around. Also she was constantly surrounded with trash. Where she was sitting, she was surrounded by chick-fil-a wrappers and chip bags and coke cans and about a jillion wadded-up napkins. She was with her crackpimp (?) who was a big ole ugly dude in a uniform shade of navy blue. I'm serious, his clothes, shoes, skin, hair, all looked to be about the same color of navy blue. He was not healthy. Or maybe it was the fluorescent lights.