Drew feels MUCH better. A little achy from all the hurling and all the sleeping, but he’s so much better. Thanks so much for all the prayers, and thanks to the medical community for magical shots that make maladies go away within the hour and allow my tortured sweetheart to sleep. Well done, y’all. Oh, and no chest pains thus far. Bonus!

I’m still sick, though. Not as bad as I was last weekend, when it was all I could do to paint a 5-foot stretch of trim in my bedroom, but I’ve still got this nasal thing that nothing I can take will remedy. It’s really starting to grate my nerves, and my mom keeps telling me to go to the doctor.

As promised, a few short stories about our fellow ER patients, annoying and otherwise.

1. The television was the most annoying. When we got there, a Tim McGraw and Faith Hill show was playing. I’m not sure what it was about, but Tim and Faith were singing at each other in the middle of a bunch of candles. Cute, but the TV was WAY too loud to be in an ER waiting room. Seriously. I turned it down when the next show came on and casual sex was the subject. Not with a bunch of children in the room, thanks so much.

2. A woman came in and I heard her say that a spider had bitten her lip. She turned around and her lip was the size of a banana. I know how much we all want me to live, but if a spider bit my lip, I’d ask Jesus to take me right then and there. I can think of very little worse than a) a spider on my face and b) a spider nibbling on my lip. That poor, poor woman. OHHH gee manitly the nightmares…

3. A woman came in with 2 young boys, aged maybe 4 and 6, and a very disheveled little girl, aged about 7. I learned from the woman’s very loud conversation on the lobby’s telephone that the little girl had fallen off a slide at school and bumped her head. Well, it was about 8 o’clock, and the horsing around the little girl was doing on the floor with the boys while mom was in phone-land was more likely to hurt her than the concussion she could possibly be suffering.
Drew wanted some water, so as I was walking to get him some, the 7-year-old flipped me off with great vigor and stuck his tongue out at me. I told him, since his mom was engrossed in her conversation, that that was inappropriate, and not to do it. He smiled and put his hands behind his back. I went to sit back down, and a few minutes later, the boy starts waving around his favorite finger, and when I didn’t pay attention, stood up (he’s about 20 feet away from me) and starts waving it at me. I still didn’t pay attention, although I really wanted to go give the boy a hug and play a game with him or something. The kid clearly needed some constructive attention. Mom said nothing to him the entire time.
She got off the phone and started asking everyone in the waiting room for change for a dollar. I had plenty, because I hadn’t had supper and was going to raid the waiting room’s snack machine, but wasn’t going to give it to her if that meant she was headed right back to phone-land. She went around the corner (leaving her 4-, 6-, and 7-year-old children in a public waiting room) and didn’t come back. When Drew and I were walking back to get him taken care of, she was on the registration lady’s phone. Later, when Drew was sleeping off the magical shot in his hospital room, I heard quite a ruckus out in the hallway. I walked out a few minutes later, and she was on the phone at the nurses’ station. Mom of the year, y’all.