Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Swine

Ashley and I have had many run-ins with emergency medical facilities, and by "Ashley and I" what I really mean is that I have driven Ashley for emergency medical treatment many times over the course of our relationship...

Typically these trips revolve around her eyes - I promise to write a blog about this in the future - but this time it was "an unproductive cough, a 100 degree temperature, a persistent headache, and a bit of nausea (which may or may not have been due to a hangover from the 1 beer she had the previous night, we are getting old)."

Because we literally just finished paying off the medical bill from our last little trip to the emergency room in January (by trip read I was driving Ashley), we decided to opt for the always dependable Urgent Care facility.

While she was not feeling well, them main purpose of the trip was to rule out the ominous swine so Ashley could go to work the next day... Ashley has this horrible habit of always needing urgent medical attention on Sundays during football season, I honestly think it’s a ploy to make me watch less football, and once again, here we were on a Sunday.

She gets checked out and diagnosed with the early stages of bronchitis or pneumonia. She is given some prescriptions and we are on our way. Ashley hadn’t had much of an appetite, so we decided to go to Dunkin Donuts while we wait for the prescriptions to get filled and get some donuts. I haven’t had a donut in about 6 years, so I’m pretty excited. Ashley brings over the box of donuts grinning like she just robbed the place, sits down, and apparently opened the box a little too quickly causing her to sneeze all over the donuts. All I could think was about the bronch she just sneezed all over my meal and I started to cry.

Crazy enough, I actually made it back home just in time for kick-off!!! This day was going to turn out all right, despite the fact that I didn’t get any donuts. The Bengal's won, and I'm ready for a good end to the weekend...

That is until I go upstairs to find Ash laying in a ball in bed with the thermometer hanging out of her mouth like a chain smoker getting in that last cigarette before bed. Her temperature is up to 102.7, so for the second time in the day, she needs urgent medical care… this time we aren’t messing around and go for the real hospital ER.

I’m nervous about her at this point, so I drop her off, drive 18 miles away to park the car, run back to the ER sweating, trying to catch my breath, and I’m told I need to put on a medical mask… They might as well have given me a plastic bag to put over my head to slowly suffocate… I find ash sitting in the waiting room, seemingly near death. After a fairly short wait in hospital ER terms, we were taken to see the doc.

So we are pretty scared that she has this terrible horrible no good very bad swine flu that you hear always associated with death and the devil. So the doc looks at her asks some questions and just says, “I’m pretty sure it’s the swine flu. And you aren’t pregnant or under 4 so I can’t really do anything for you.” WHAT? REALLY? I thought they were supposed to call in the helicopter, strap her to the gurney and rush her of to Alcatraz for quarantine. Can’t do anything? My mom has been calling me for months about the terrors of this flu. She told me to get a flu shot and when they ran out she told me to go to North Philly and ask on street corners for the hook up. Can’t do anything?!?!

In the end they gave her Tylenol, (yeah that stuff I take when I get a mild headache) and told her she was dehydrated. So they gave her an IV bag, to which Ashley tells me, “I don’t think they realize how little I am, that bag is as big as me!” I patted her on the head.

In the end I took her home with the windows open and my head hanging out so as to avoid the swine as much as possible. I put her in bed, and decided I should probably sleep out on the deck just to be safe. She was actually better in about 2-3 days, but I still hold my breath every time I’m around her just in case.

So in the end it was just like a normal flu, I thought she would at least grow a curly tail or something… I’ll just chalk the swine flu up to media propaganda while I keep holding my breath.

- Justin