Thursday, April 4

Last night, Hubbie had a severe bowel problem that nothing cured. This morning, he was completely miserable, and it became apparent that he needed to go to the ER.

We arrived there around 8 a.m. He was so miserable that I had to use Mother's wheelchair to get him into the hospital. There was no delay at the reception area, and he was taken to an exam room promptly. Things bogged down from then on. Nurses came and went, and the doctor finally arrived and ordered an x-ray.

Time dragged, and dragged, and dragged, and Hubbie was getting more and more miserable, to the point of sobbing. Finally, when I could stand his suffering no longer, I made it plenty clear that something needed to be done for his pain. The doctor ordered a small dose of morphine. When it was administered, and Hubbie was in bed, the pain subsided pretty quickly.

But we waited another eternity before the doctor decided what course of action to take. At 11 a.m., he finally decided Hubbie should be sent upstairs to be irrigated. A nurse escorted us to a room, where we were told a nurse would come by presently. It was noon before she came. When she'd gotten all the information she needed, she disappeared for another eternity, and finally around 1 p.m., she and another nurse came prepared for the procedure.

This was a very unpleasant experience for Hubbie, not helped by the fact that he was exposed to three women. But he took it stoically, and it wasn't long before he finally got relief.

In the course of all this, I called Mother a couple of times to report what was going on, and to make sure she had something on hand at her house for lunch. She did.

It was around 2 p.m. before we finally left the hospital and returned home. Hubbie was tired, and I was stressed, but otherwise everything was fine.

I accompanied Mother to our house, and we made a couple of pots of soup...chicken noodle, and Dragon soup. We indulged in the chicken noodle for supper, since I thought it would be easier on Hubbie's stomach. Hubbie accompanied Mother home afterward, and then he settled in for an evening of TV, while I went back to the downtown church for a documentary screening.

Tonight, there was a couple of short films, and one longer one. The short ones included one about an elderly couple at the end of their lives, who try to rekindle the romance of their first date by going to a movie theater that is on the verge of closing down. It's a very touching and sad film. Fifteen minutes long.

The second short film was about a teenage girl with a negative attitude who meets someone in a more dire situation than her own. Eleven minutes long.

The main feature is a think piece featuring four men...a naturalist, a scientist, a historian, and a poet, who explore "where did we come from, why are we here, and where are we going afterward." It sort of addresses our primal scream upon entrance into the world, our various activities in an attempt to transend what we know is coming, and our primal scream at our exit from the world. Lots of food for thought in this one.

By the time I got home, I was plenty ready for bed.