Sick Situations

I swear our house is haunted, or maybe it’s a gris-gris on my van. Last summer, we had houseguests, and one ended up in the emergency room at University of Tennessee Hospital. This led to several days of in-patient diagnostic tests. Now, our current visitor has been run through their medical care ringer.

Richard insisted on driving her to the hospital when she had a bout of chest pain and shortness of breath. I was happy to believe that it was her nerves, but Richard wanted to make sure that she wasn’t having a bit of a blood clot “situation.” Two hours is a little far away from the hospital to take chances on midnight medical mishaps. I guess the fit I pitched about him waiting so long to decide he needed to go to the emergency room last winter when he was having a bit of a pneumonia “situation” is paying off. Maybe I should be more careful what I ask for.

I don’t think our cooking causes these events, but could it be our company? Are we really that high stress to live with? Maybe it’s the mountain air, or the accommodations. I guess I shouldn’t forget that Richard and I had more than our share of hospital adventures long before we lived in Tennessee. And even I can’t convince myself that I caused Richard’s hospital stay due to pneumonia.

I think I’ll simply stop asking Richard to play doctor with our guests. They report their symptoms to me, and I pass them on to my man. Next thing I know, we’re sitting in an ER waiting for test results and picking lint out of our navels as our company is poked, prodded, and asked the same set of questions over and over again. Is that any way to treat friends and family?

After only four hours in the ER, our guest got a clean bill of health, and we were in our own beds before dawn. Maybe we should ask UT for a commission on each insured person we deliver to their door. Or maybe not…