Lately, in my blogs, I can't seem to get away from old age and health issues. So, I determined to leave this wasteland for sunnier topics such as reading, sport and the meaning of life (yes, I know it, but will not reveal it until I am good and ready.)
Unfortunately, you'll have to endure one more health experience. Friday, Iris and I left at 10 a.m. for a well-structured weekend in the country. We were to meet our contractor after lunch, go to dinner and movies with friends Friday night, and to a dinner party on Saturday.
Somewhere, early on the Long Island Expressway, I shut my eyes to nap. Iris, of course, was driving. I am permitted local driving only since I totaled our BMW. I turned to Iris and said, "I have a bit of nausea."
The next thing I know, we are off the expressway, parked at a service station. A fire truck zooms in, followed by an ambulance. I am gently removed from the car and placed in the ambulance. An insistent man is sticking his face into mine and peppering me with questions. Madness... I feel fine, but I rattle off the date, my birthday, social security number. When asked who is president, I decide to fight back. "Ted Cruz," I say.
It seems that i fainted right after my remark about nausea and was unresponsive for close to five minutes. So Iris called 911. Now, feeling chipper, I protest loudly, but nobody is listening. My doom is sealed. I have no power, no will. The ambulance leaves for the hospital, which turns out to be New York Hospital in Queens. I lie back and let events wash over me.
What a frenetic emergency room! Nurses, patient assistants, doctors rush back and forth. Bodies are stuffed in small cubicles and line the halls. somebody rushes in, peppers me with more questions, takes my blood pressure, hooks me up to a monitor behind my bed that shrieks constantly. Somebody else takes my blood, sticks a thermometer in my mouth. Madness! What happened to the weekend?
Iris is sitting at the end of my bed, looking out at the bedlam. I start to cry. This adorable lady has taken charge. It's all on her shoulders. I have been bitchy when I should have been grateful. I tell her that, tears dripping from my eyes. I tell her that I don't want to be a burden and I mean that with all my heart. "You should never have married an older man," I say.
There followed a tender moment which I will not describe because I am not into describing tender moments -- certainly not my own.
All my life I have enjoyed good health. Fainting, however, is my specialty. I first fainted in a tourist shop in Curaco at the age of 10, more recently on the train from Paris to Nice, in a museum outside Rio de Janeiro and at home. Always preceded by a whiff of nausea and waking up hale and
hearty.
If Ted Cruz does become president, surely, I will faint.