Tuesday. May 22. 2007

Galahad and I tried to go see Spiderman 3 this weekend, but fate decided otherwise.  A few of us met up for dinner before the movie, and during dinner one friend started having intense abdominal pain.  It got so bad that she insisted we take her to the hospital.  Since she isn't even close to being a hypochondriac, we got our food to go, refunded the movie tickets, and sped over to the closest hospital.  While we waited in the ER, we met this group of kids who had rushed over after a pool accident.  They were all still in their wet swimsuits and mismatched clothes.  One girl had a giant gash on her chin.  They were chatting amongst themselves and soon we joined in and made her laugh.  Others in the waiting room started feeling more comfortable and joined the conversation, too.  It was a nice tension release.  In the back of my mind, I wondered if anyone there was waiting for awful news on a loved one.  I hoped that we helped distract them if even temporarily.

After she got settled in her room (who knew ERs had private rooms?), we joined her and tried to keep her spirits up.  I know all too well what it's like to be in so much pain, you need to vomit.  Poor girl.  I held her hair while she threw up.  We quickly persuaded the nurses to up her painkillers instead of waiting to see if what they gave her worked.  Pretty soon, we were having a party in her room.  We had us plus a few staff members laughing away at dumb jokes and her ratty socks.  :p  She told me later that she went home and threw her socks away.  ;)  Somehow no one cared that her underwear was brand new.  We just teased her about her socks.  The P.A. told me that she had never seen someone in that much pain laugh before.  Welcome to my world.  Laughter doesn't make the pain go away, but it helps to distract for a split second here & there.

In hindsight I bet they were glad they gave us a room instead of one of the curtained-off areas because of how loud we were.  I absentmindedly wondered if our laughter helped anyone else or offended them because of the gravity of their loved one's condition.  Galahad played around with all of the gadgets and supplies in the room and asked the nurse where the bar was in the hospital.  Haha, she was great and said in her locker!

Anyway, my friend finally passed her stone and was medicated enough to be released.  I'm sure we'll talk about & remember this night far better than if we had gone to see Spiderman.  Sigh.  But I still want to see Spidey!