Sam’s Big Gift: Part 4 (Conclusion)

Today’s post is the finale of my “Sam’s Big Gift” mini series of posts detailing, in hopefully humorous fashion, our adventures of last week’s trip to the hospital.  To get yourself acquainted with the rest of the series, why not read up on Part 1, Part 2 and (while you’re at it) Part 3 before proceeding?  It’ll put you into the context of what happened and how we got to the hospital.

And now for the rest of the story…

After my episode with the needle from Hell, nurse Sandi (not her real name) let me rest up a bit before “The Big Move”.  The nurses now deemed us self sufficient enough to be placed into an observation room, away from the crazy happenings of the triage hallway/cot area.   This was a welcome change, even though it took them 20 minutes of tugging and pushing my stretcher around the tight hallways of the hospital, before settling on a room that could fit both my stretcher and Melissa’s.  They would put me in one ammonia smelling room only to come fetch me three minutes later to park me in a bio-waste smelling room.  Just as Sandi pushed me into that nasty second room, an orderly came by and said that he hadn’t cleaned that room yet hence the smell of the previous occupant lingering in the air. Nice.  Now I had a throat full of bile and a nose full of sh*t.

So off we went for another session of musical chairs, this time landing me in a room with an 80 year old lady.  Sandi apparently thought that this lady, who was two and a half times my age and had a belly button between her boobs, was my wife.  Sigh… Enter nurse Mandi (never saw nurse Sandi again) who whisked me away yet again, away from my geriatric roommate to finally bring me to the last room I would visit in this hospital.  Mandi pushed me into the double sized room and assured me Melissa was on her way and considering how the last 20 minutes went, I hardly believed her.  But then, a noise found itself to my ear.  It was low a first, almost an unpleasant, incomprehensible buzz that quickly grew louder into a jabbering of words being rapidly and enthusiastically exchanged.  Words in the voice of Melissa and her sister chatting away as they approached the room.  Happy to see Melissa for the first time since we left the ambulance a few hours earlier, I greeted her with a blown kiss.  She smiled too, happy to be back together.

Myriam, Melissa’s sister, brought our bags to the door of the room and repeated a routine she must have done a hundred and sixty times that day: throw on a visitor’s gown and put on rubber gloves.  You see, Melissa and I were in “quarantine” due to the unknown nature of our illness.  So Myriam had no choice but to put on and take off, every time she stepped from or into the room, her gown and gloves.  Even back in the triage area, she had to change when she went between our cots. An annoying precaution to be sure, but to this day she hasn’t been sick!  Myriam was a great help to us and we were thankful that she was there as we are not sure what we would’ve done without her.

The IVs in our arms gave us much needed strength and by 5:30 P.M. our stomachs were growling, which we took as a good sign.  Supper came and Melissa started eating carefully, not fully trusting her bowels.  I was still having dizzy spells and feeling weak, but my stomach wanted food, and really folks, who am I to ignore what my stomach wants?!?!  I was having trouble sitting up close to my plate to get some carrot cubes into my mouth, so Myriam actually fed me some spoonfuls.  What are sister-in-laws for eh?  If I had any pride left, it was now gone at the expense of an empty, cramped and hungry belly.

Shortly after, around 7:30 P.M., Mandi walked in and told us that our blood tests came back negative and that we most likely had suffered from a form of severe gastroenteritis.  It was viral and not a case of food poisoning.  This conclusion was supported by the fact that no one else we knew got sick from anything we had eaten with them, including my parents and their friends who we’d dined with on Sunday.

She also let drop that pending the doctors approval, and if our meals “stayed down”, we could then leave.  That was welcome news because as you know, there’s no place like home and this hospital gown was itching my butt so bad!  It had been a long day and we just wanted to get back home and see how Sammy was doing.  We missed him terribly.

Now that we knew what they thought we had, we were busting our brains trying to figure out where we got it.  I couldn’t remember licking any toilet bowls and Melissa’s a pretty clean girl… So where? How?  Well, figuring something like that out is like finding WMDs: near impossible.  Before we knew it, doctor Brandi came in, gave us the once over with a poke here and a prod there, and told us to go home.  Needless to say, we were all smiles… maybe a little worried about actually, physically getting to the car… but smiling none-the-less!   So after sliding off the bed, going for a quick bathroom break in a chair/toilet thing (I will spare the details on that), we got dressed and headed for that blessed fresh air!  We were free, after what felt like three days, we were now actually walking out the door to our car’s parking spot… which was empty!

Stolen!

Just kidding folks!  The car was fine… and thank goodness too.  I think that would have been the last straw.  I would’ve had a rampage and the next mornings news paper headline would have read: “Man kills half the hospital with used colonostemy bag”.  In all seriousness, we got home nice and safely to see Sam sleeping soundly and my Dad reporting an easy time of babysitting.  We let him know that what we had was viral, so he could get it by touching us or something we touched.  He said it wasn’t a problem as he washed his hands frequently while going about his business in the house.  We thanked him and Myriam profusely for their help and they went on their separate ways, deserving of a good nights sleep after a crazy long day.

That night, we slept great.

We’ve been recovering ever since and barring a little diarrhea from Sam, we’ve completely recovered.  That, however, can’t be said for my Dad.  He fell ill two days after our parting with the same symptoms we had.  He’s doing fine now, but he had one nasty night and a very unsteady day as well.  Hearing this news, it dawned on Melissa and I that the only common factor tying her, my Dad and me to the sickness was…  Sam.  On the previous Saturday, Sam threw up on Melissa and I (see Part 1) and he’d been having wet poops ever since.  Two days later, we got sick.  My Dad, being the loving Grandpa that he is, kissed and hugged Sam while he babysat him the day we were in the hospital.  He only washed his hands after he touched our stuff and not after he handled Sam.  Again, two days later, he got sick.  It’s so simple to see now!

So, folks, It might have been obvious to you from the start… or not.  But now that you’ve followed us through our journey into the unknown filled with nursery rhyme paramedics (Jack & Jill), stripper nurses (Candi, Bambi, Mandi, Sandi and Brandi), killer needles, carrot cubes and an abundance of bodily fluids (both ingested and expunged)… You now know the full extent of: Sam’s Big Gift!

That’s it for now folks, hope you enjoyed it.

Thanks for reading!

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