11-16-05 Gold's Gym 25th Street Ogden

   Ordinarily I see Ed in the weight room when I come down from Aerobics, but on Monday the substitute Body Pump instructor forgot to come.  She was 15 minutes late starting the class, making me late passing through the weight room.  Ed is already down to the pool so I just pick up his coat.  I get in the swimming pool around 11 AM.  He is down in the deep with everyone else.  He comes over, taps me on the shoulder and says, “I shouldn’t have taken those vitamin pills this morning.”  “Is one caught in your throat?”  He is gaggy and we decide we had better get down in the shallow.  I tell him to get out and go throw up then come back and tell me how he feels.  He comes back, gets in the pool and says that he threw up.  I thought he would feel better and be OK, but he kept gagging so we decided we had better get out.  He goes to the Men’s room to shower and dress and I go upstairs.  I hurry, but when I come down the owner’s son said that he was sick back in the men’s room and that Joe had gone back.  I wait.  Finally, a guy from his swimming class motions me back.  They tell everyone to get decent and I go back to try to get him to come out.  He is throwing up like crazy.  He is all showered and dressed.  With a man on each side they help him out to the waiting room when he sits down.  I run to move the car closer but he won’t budge.  He can’t.  “I don’t think I can.  I don’t think I can.”  A paramedic coming out of the gym notices him and doesn’t like what he sees.  He calls for backup.  He is icy cold; beads of sweat pouring off him; white.  They can’t get a pulse.  He won’t let them put oxygen tubes in his nose.  He won’t put a mask on.  They carry him out on the stretcher.  No protests.  That’s when I become alarmed.  Fifteen years ago when he collapsed on the steps after a surgery when he swallowed too much blood and threw up, he would not let them take him.   I rode in the ambulance because I was in no condition to drive.  The driver pulled out of the parking lot when one of the attendants in the back shouted  “URGENT!’  

   Lights and sirens. 

   Ed deteriorated so rapidly it scared everybody to death.

   “This is a very serious situation,” the Emergency Room doctor let us know right away.  Amy had driven DeRay over and they got there not long after the ambulance.  It was pretty much pandemonium for the next couple of hours.  His vital signs are erratic – his heart beating rapidly and his blood pressure low.  His temperature is low.  They put him in a plastic tubed thing and pumped hot air in.  Four hours later, it is still only 96.  He had two heart, chest, and lung x-rays; a CAT scan; an MRI; blood tests.

   Despite the critical nature of his condition, he kept his priorities and his personality:

I leaned down to kiss him as he went into the MRI machine:  “You’ve got bad breath.“

   He wasn’t responding; yes, he was groggy even though they hadn’t given him anything to make him groggy, he probably wasn’t responding not because he couldn’t but because he wouldn’t.  He is aware even in his sleep and unconsciousness, no doubt.  And then just out of the clear, he says, “Boy, I sure liked that ambulance ride, Mom.”

   The doctor smiled and told the story three or four more times that day.

   “I’m homesick.”

   “I’m supposed to be unloading the dishwasher.”

   “I’m just homesick.”

   They cut his clothes off.  It was one of his favorite shirts.  It was nowhere near worn out.  Providentially they saved his sunglasses!

   After 8 hours in the Emergency Room, he was finally moved to an IMU Room.  All afternoon they kept talking about moving him to a room.  He had had two bags on his IV, one ran out and they slowed the other one down.

   He obviously needed the fluids.

   His blood pressure plummeted to 44/14.

   Suddenly everyone is working over him again.

   “We need the emergency room personnel to get him stabilized.  We’re not moving him.”

   “If he stabilizes, we can move him to IMU (intermediate care$$) rather than ICU (critical care—$$$).” 

   We don’t want him in ICU.  No way.

   He is still throwing up.

   We still hoped to take him home – half hoped.  “I’d hate to try to take care of him at home,” the emergency room nurse said.   If she couldn’t do it, we certainly couldn’t.  He needed to be monitored carefully.

   “The elevator wasn’t as fun as the ambulance ride.”

   “I’ll need to shave.”

   “Maybe he can shower in the morning,” his dad says.

   “I hope so.”

   “Look Ed, you’ve got a TV in your room.”—“AND A CLOCK,” he adds.  They took his watch when he first got there and I guess even though we thought he was out of it, it had been driving him crazy not to know what time it was.

   “You stink.”

   He wouldn’t put the oxygen mask on because it smelled bad.

   “You can’t ever go on an airplane again because if the cabin loses pressure, you have to put the mask on or die.”  Made no difference.  He hated it more than he felt threatened.

   We knew he was getting back to normal, when he asked:  “Do you love me, Mom?”

   DeRay spent the night with him.  I rode home with Brooke, planning to go back over so one could sleep a little and one could watch him, but I never made it back until early the next morning.  DeRay takes things his stride better than I do.

   When Elizabeth and Karlton stopped by the next day to see him, I asked him to tell Karlton what he rode in yesterday.

   “I rode in an ambulance, Karlton, but the best part was when your daddy came to see me.”

   As much as he loves thrill rides and motion, he loves his brother more.

   We decided when he got home that he was going to drink one glass of water every hour.  We got home about noon and it was 2:30 before I took him his first glass.  “Finally.” he exclaimed, like he was a lover of water instead of a detester.   

   We think he simply got dehydrated from throwing up so violently.  We think he was right when he said the vitamin pills made him throw up. 

   That’s not saying he couldn’t die because several times he came perilously close.  The paramedics stopped by several times to see how he was doing.  They thought it was his heart.  It was simply his fragile ecosystem.

   “You know what I liked about yesterday?”  “What?”  “When Elizabeth and Karlton came.”

   Wednesday morning, he comes into the computer room, looks at his watch and says, “Two weeks ago today we were at the Arlington National Cemetery.”

   “Nice of Aunt Clare to call, Mom.  I sure miss her.  And for taking us to the airport and picking us up. . ..”

   He didn't know that Brent and Jan had called; and Aunt Verla.

   “I need to tell the paramedics thank you for the ambulance ride.  I sure enjoyed it.”

Ready to guess what the total for Ed's ambulance ride is?  Three miles from the gym to the hospital. $975.82.

We didn’t call them; they were already there.  They took over.  I thought they were volunteering.  Gym buddies, you know.

Oh, the price of saving a life!

Ed’s hospital, not counting the doctors for 24 hours:  $8,614.99.  JUST A WARNING.  Don't require any medical attention.  And don't die either.