hospital

Yesterday morning, I was digging away in the garden, my mobile rang. In the display my mother’s mobile number appeared. My mother, who is 79 years young, doesn’t often use her mobile to phone people. And she only phones my mobile number if there is something urgent going on. So I was prepared for the worst as I picked up the phone. It wasn’t my mother on the other end. And it wasn’t my father (87 years young) either. But it was an old man. “Uh uh uh, yes yes, hello hello, this is your parent’s neighbour speaking. Your mother… (muddled speech)… hospital… (muddled)… ambulance… (muddled again)… doctor… (very muddled)… father on his bicycle… (muddled)…don’t worry… (muddled)… says could you come. But not to worry.”

So. As far as I could understand my mother was in hospital, went there by ambulance, my father followed the ambulance on his bike and I didn’t have to worry, but could I please come to the hospital. Something like that anyway. “But don’t worry, you shouldn’t worry”, the neighbour insisted again. “Okay, I won’t worry”, I assured him. “And I’m going to the hospital. Thank your for calling me.”

I told hubs, who fortunately was at home, that I had to go to my parents because apparently my mother was in hospital and left him in charge of the furry bunch at home. Now, my parents live in a town about 50 kilometres (approx. 31 miles) away from where we live. I could have gone by plane (which is what we call the Range Rover) but we recently did something very irresponsible and traded one of our other cars that we didn’t really need anymore (the one hubs dented when backing up the plane) in for this one… a Volkswagen EOS.

Much more fun. And the weather was nice. And hubs said: “take the EOS”. So I did.

But first I tried to call my father to see if he was at home yet or still at the hospital. He picked up the home phone and explained to me that my mother went to the doctor that morning, because she hadn’t been feeling well. On her way to the doctor (on her bicycle) she felt unwell again, explained to the doctor what she was feeling, he hooked her up to a machine to register what her heart was doing, noticed something alarming, ordered an ambulance and she was rushed off to hospital. The doctor’s assistant called my father, who jumped on his bike and cycled to the hospital too. My father doesn’t drive a car anymore, because he is partially blind. He only has 60% vision in one eye. And that is his good eye.
On his way to the hospital, he cycled passed the doctor’s office and saw the ambulance driving off.

Neighbours of my parents coincidentally were in the waiting room of the doctor’s office and saw my mother being rushed out, into the ambulance. Then they saw my 87-year old half blind father on his bike in pursuit of the ambulance. Since the woman had to see the doctor she stayed behind, but the man jumped in his car and followed the ambulance and my cycling father.
(Can you see why in my mind this is a funny image? I see a slapstick movie in the making.)

In the hospital my parents were surprised to see their neighbour and thought his wife had been admitted too. He explained that he had been worried about my mother and wanted to know what was going on. My mother, who will never give up control, asked him if he wanted to go to their house to call my mobile phone with her mobile phone. Because her mobile phone knows my mobile phone’s number. And my father doesn’t know how to use a mobile and can’t see what name or number comes up in the display anyway. And that is why my mother’s number came up in my mobile phone, but it was the neighbour who was calling.

So I went on my way to the hospital. You have to pay for parking at the parking lot of the hospital. I took a ticket from the dispenser, the barrier went up and I parked my car. Did the neat trick in which the roof appears from the boot to cover the car again and walked into the hospital. The lady at the reception desk told me I could find my mother at cardiology. So I went up to her room. But my mother wasn’t there. “They are doing some tests now”, the nurse explained. “She’ll be back soon.”
And indeed, soon after they wheeled a bed with my vomiting mother in it back into the room and hooked her up to the monitor again. “She had to cycle to see how her heart would react to that, but she passed out, so we don’t know anything yet”, the nurse said. “We’ll have to wait for the cardiologist now.”
A while later the cardiologist came and said: “Since you passed out on the bike, we don’t have a result for that test, so if you agree we want to do a cardiac catheterisation to see if your arteries are blocked. We’d like to do that today, but I’m not sure when there is a possibility available yet. We will know more about that in about an hour.”
My mother said “okay” to the doctor and to me “you can go to our home now and tell dad.”
And that is what I did.

My father made tea, the whole neighbourhood already knew my mother was in hospital so a couple of people stopped by and a couple of others telephoned, and then my father and I went to the hospital again to see if they knew something more about when they would do the catheterisation. Again I took a ticket from the dispenser, the barrier went up and I parked the car. I have to tell you, an EOS and a 87-year old man are not a good combination. Getting into the car wasn’t such a problem, but getting out of it…. The EOS is quite low to the ground so you have to sort of hoist yourself to an upright position again. Even hubs and I, relatively young and agile, haven’t mastered to do that elegantly yet.

But dad and I eventually made it out of the car (another slapstick movie) and we went to see my mother. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon by then and there was no news yet about whether my mother would be catheterised that afternoon and if, at what time.

Since my parent’s landline phone wasn’t working properly anymore after it had been dropped on the floor a while ago, my mother sent my father and me to the shops to buy a new phone. So I could program the new phone with the telephone numbers of their friends and family. Typically my mother, lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to all sorts of monitors, very unwell, but still directing everyone around her. She even told the nurse to go see a man a couple of beds further down, because my mother thought he needed some attention. I mean… what?!

So my dad and I sank ourselves into the car again and went to the shops to buy a new phone.
We took the phone to their home, installed it, I programmed in the numbers while my father opened the door to everyone who wanted to know how my mother was doing and then we made ourselves something to eat. My mobile phone rang. It was the nurse who told me that my mother had been taken to the treatment room for the catheterisation. She said it would probably take an hour and a half. The nurse would call me when my mother was brought back to the room.

An hour later the nurse called: “She’s back, they’ve found absolutely nothing wrong with her arteries. They are exceptionally clean for a woman of her age. But she must lie down for two hours now.”
“Can she come home then? Or do you want to keep her for observation?”
”I don’t know yet. The cardiologist will have to visit first and then we will know more.”

My father made coffee, a couple of people called again how my mother was doing and I packed a bag for her in case she should have to stay in hospital overnight. At about eight o’clock my father and I lowered ourselves into the EOS again and drove to the hospital. For the third time that day I took a ticket from the dispenser, the barrier went up and I parked the car. I hoisted my father from the depths of the EOS and we went to see my mother.

She wasn’t in her bed. “What have you done with her?”, I asked the nurse. “Don’t worry. She went to the toilet and you can take her home”, she laughed.
”Oh. Well. In that case I will have to take my father home first and then come back for my mother.”
(I know the EOS has a backseat, but neither my father nor my mother are contortionists and getting in and out of the front passenger’s seat already proved to be quite an undertaking. I didn’t want to run the risk of my father not being able to get out of the car again. He would have to be the one who’d have to fold himself onto the backseat. All kinds of scenarios went through my head. Having a vivid imagination can be quite fun.)
So I brought my father home and went back to the hospital to get my mother.

For the fourth time that day I took a ticket from the dispenser, the barrier went up and I parked the car. The parking lot was almost empty by that time, so I could park close to the front entrance of the hospital. Thinking it would be convenient.
I had been instructed to get a wheelchair (you can ‘hire’ one for a deposit of two Euros) because my mother wasn’t allowed to walk too far yet. So I got a wheelchair, took the thing upstairs, collected my mother who still had a needle in her hand that had to be removed first, which took some time because the nurse was attending to another patient and then my mother told her a long story about a man who had been lying dead for 10 days in his apartment in the building where my parents live and then we finally could leave the hospital.
I wheeled her to the front entrance of the hospital. Closed!
After half past eight people had to use the side entrance to get in and out of the hospital. This isn’t a huge, but still a big hospital and it was quite a long walk back to the side entrance. I had already checked if I had to pay parking charges, but since I had only been there for a short while this time, the machine told me I could leave without paying. But I had to drive out of the parking lot within 10 minutes. So I speeded up a little, with my mother in the wheelchair hanging on for dear life. The side entrance came in sight. I raced my mother through it, parked her on the sidewalk, said: “Sit! And Stay!” (years of dog training came in handy) and ran half a marathon to the front entrance, to my car, jumped in and raced towards the side entrance of the hospital. Couldn’t get to it, because for that entrance there is another parking lot and there were all sorts of barriers between both parking lots. So I parked the car as close to the side entrance as I could get, crawled out and ran slaloming around the barriers to my mother who was still patiently waiting in her wheelchair. “I’ll walk to the car, YOU put the wheelchair back”, my mother dictated. And my mother took off at snails pace while I put the wheelchair back and collected my two Euros again. I caught up with my mother who was halfway to the car, walked slowly with her and helped her in. Then I jumped into the driving seat and raced back around the parking lot towards the exit. With only a minute left I put the card into the machine and hooray… the barrier went up and I could leave the parking lot for the last time that day. Phew.

I brought my mother home, drank a cup of coffee, called a couple of people to tell them that mother had returned to base camp, explained to my mother how the new phone worked and drove home myself. Pooped!

This afternoon I’ve called my parents to see how my mother was feeling and she is tired, but okay. So. That was that! But should there be a next time (I hope not), I’ll definitely take the plane.