Well here I am in Seattle. I failed to bring Perfect Sunny Goodness with me the entire way–it’s a bit cloudy–but I did manage to bring it all the way to about SeaTac! So maybe it will clear a little more. I think I used the rest of my weird weather luck to conjure up a parking space right in front of Mark’s building. Which was pretty welcome, given how tired I must be, if I would only slow down long enough to feel it. 🙂
Because, last night around 9pm, I got a phone call from a friend, who had suffered an unfortunate series of events and needed to be driven to an emergency room. (Not critical enough to call 911; not minor enough to leave for the morning.) So I popped over and we went to where we thought was an emergency room…but it was an urgent care center, and it had closed at 8:30. A helpful security guard pointed us in the direction of a “nearby” emergency room…in Vancouver WA. Well, okay.
My friend, poor thing, read out the directions (while politely every now and then saying Oh it hurts), and there we went…only to find (after much back-and-forth nonsense, in the dark and stormy night) that it was an urgent care center. It was open, but the staff were, well I will just say it, idiots. Shockingly unequipped for what was an urgent situation in need of, you know, Urgent Care.
They did, however, send us to a real hospital, which had a real emergency room. By now it was 10:30. And how sweet it was to drive up into all those lights, that welcoming driveway, an orderly with a wheelchair waiting, and a full staff who knew what they were doing. They whisked Friend into a room right away and–I swear to god–10 different people were all working on the patient at once. Tests were done, treatments were administered, this and that happened, and, lo, by about 1:30 a.m. we were sent on our way with directions to the all-night pharmacy across town and a pain-med scrip.
To the pharmacy we went; meds were secured; then it was back across the border and Friend was safely delivered home, though not without further discomfort.
I got back home about 2:30, exhausted yet wired. Sent some emails about the situation, then tried to sleep…actually I read a while, turned off the light at 3:15 or so, probably finally fell asleep around 4.
And woke up a little after 8, which was fine, because I had a work meeting it was good to get to. And then packed for Seattle, forgetting some important things because, well, you know.
But I am feeling pretty good and energetic, because coincidentally, I’d been at the Very Not Urgent care clinic myself earlier in the day, to see if something could be done about this puffy-eyelids thing that just won’t go away. Clearly I’m allergic to something. After much conversation with the doctor, she concludes: clearly I’m allergic to something. This morning I started a “steroid taper,” and I’m taking Benadryl and Claritin (evening and morning, respectively), and it’s all a bit better today, though still red and itchy… anyway, with all those meds in there (especially the steroids), I don’t feel like I stayed up till 4am at all! 🙂