Beat the Clock

After Big Brother Oxford decided to discharge me, they couldn't get rid of me fast enough. Honestly, I believe that if there had been an eject button on the side of my bed, they would have used it. Then someone actually thought it might be wise to check if this was indeed a sound idea medically. One of the things they then realized was that my blood count was low. So low, in fact, that I resembled a Robert Pattinson victim with two holes in my neck (betcha didn't think I knew who Robert Pattinson was, did ya?!). The hemoglobin count in a healthy adult male is usually about 13-14; mine was 8 point something. That's considered really low. So after the decision was made to discharge me, the decision was made to transfuse me. I guess they figured that it wouldn't be good for Columbia Presbyterian's reputation as a world class medical facility if one of their freshly-released patients was found lying face-down on the sidewalk after having passed out due to a lack of red blood cells. They decided to give me two units (pints) of blood, and they hung the first one at about 3:15. Transfusing takes between two and three hours per unit, L-rd only knows why. The ambulance coming to get me was scheduled to arrive at around 7:00. Do the math. Kalman was visiting that day and he was just about to leave when this whole discharge thing came up, so he decided to stay; he figured he could ride in the ambulance with me. They were so gung-ho on my not missing the ambulance, they kept coming in and checking the flow of the blood in the IV, giving the bag a good squeeze every once in a while. I'm not making this up. I thought they were going to take the damn bag off the pole, put it in a doggy-bag and give it to me to go. About half-way through the second unit we got word that the bus (hospital jargon for "ambulance") was on its way. Kalman hung around, dutifully waiting. Somehow they got the red stuff to move just quickly enough so that it was all inside me in time. Incidently, I don't know who the donor was, but I think it might have been black guy, because, inexplicably, I can now dance. If I ever start developing a taste for rap music (an oxymoron if there ever was one), I'll just stick my head in the oven. Anyway, the ambulance showed up shortly thereafter. Just one little hitch: they were supposed to send one that was geared to handle a patient who was oxygen dependent, which this one was not. Even though I pleaded with the EMT's, they said they couldn't take me, they could lose their jobs, yada, yada, yada. So we were back to the proverbial drawing board. The ETA for the new, improved ambulance was 10:00. Kalman was at the hospital pretty much all day and he was exhausted, so he went home. The ambulance showed up at 9:00. Free at last! Free at last! Thank G-d A-mighty, I'm free at last!!