My advanture

 Yesterday, Wednesday, the 6th, I was in enough pain that I decided I'd better not "Lone Wolf" this and take advantage of modern medicine while it's still available, considering how the election went. 

I called Ken and asked him about a ride to the hospital. He said the only one he knows is the one up in Northern Fremont. I said I wanted to go to O'Conner hospital because I've been there before. I thought that with Med-Cal, ambulance rides are paid for, so since I was in so much pain being upright, I'd call 911, an ambulance would show up, on the ride they'd check my blood pressure and stuff, and they'd take me to O'Conner since I'd tell them I've been there before. 

This is where it turned into an adventure. I tried calling 911 on my flip phone and it didn't work. I got a warning screen about false calls and then it went blank. It could not get it to un-blank. I had the shop closed, and an "overnight" bag packed, and was ready to go. 

So I walked 2 doors down to good old Accu-Vac and asked the guy in there if he could call 911 for me. The guy, named Guy, did so. The 911 op talked to him and then to me, and an ambulance would be dispatched. 

Then we waited a long while, and during the time I found if I leaned on my elbow on the desk there, I could be pretty much out of pain. In that position, we talked about stuff and I talked about what we do, and said we've actually got some high vacuum stuff including some big lines, I guess bellows, that he can pretty much have for free and that when I'm well enough, I'll take him over here and show him what we have, give him those lines if he wants them, and give him a deal on the other stuff. 

It's only struck me in the last day or so that "Accu-Vac" means they specialize in vacuum/high vacuum stuff. 

So the ambulance gets here except they're on the other side of the building and can't figure out how to get to us. Guy walks out to them, and guides them around. So we're all standing there by the taco stand and I talk with the fireman, who has a glorious mustache. He says that just for a ride, I'll be charged $2500 and since there's no medical service like a heart attack or something, Medi-Cal will not pay for it. So I told them thanks but I'm not gonna do it. 

So Guy and I walk back over to Accu-Vac and I start thinking of plans, and finally I ask him if he'll drive me to O'Conner Hospital and he says, darnit, he will. So he makes sure the other guy knows what's going on, and we're off, in his zippy little Mini Cooper. 

We talk on the drive, and I ask if they're Mormon and they are. I said I'd lived as a kid for a while in Hau'ula in Hawaii, the next town over from La'ie where there's a huge Mormon temple and every 100 years it has to be re-consecrated so there's a period when "gentiles" can go in, and I got to go in and it was beautiful. It's a lot of Mormon cred for a "gentile" like me (I didn't say this part). 

Also that I had a friend who was always advising  I read "A Pearl Of Great Price" and Guy said that might be the shortest Mormon book but it's pretty important stuff like how they lived in the spirit world then decided they needed to have bodies, bodies that can sin, etc. 

Pretty soon we were there, I remembered the old bus route so I told him to get onto Stevens Creek and turn right where the old Safeway was, then go one street in and turn right, well it'd been a while since I'd been on the bus going past there, and we had to go on a bit, but after a dip under a bridge there it was. I thanks him and as I'd already told him through this, "You're a saint!" 

I went in the regular entrance, told the people at the entrance desk my situation, and the guy got a wheelchair and wheeled me into Emergency. Where  I filled out a paper and was wheeled into the waiting area. I got a quick assessment of BP, they looked me over and asked if my breathing as OK and things like that, then was wheeled back to the waiting area. 

The wheelchairs are not the kind a patient can move themselves. In fact they're locked, with a bar parallel to the handle that an orderly has to squeeze to the handle. So where I was pointed, I was pointed. This means even though there was a TV there, on something like Fox, ew, I couldn't watch it. 

Watching the people was more interesting anyway. Far more. There was the skinny, scraggly, homeless guy who looked like something out of a horror movie. He wanted to be put onto a 72-hour psych hold, but he and the hospital staff could just not communicate. The guy has lost everything, phone, ID, everything. And they wanted a phone number and ID... 

There are the usual bumps and bruises, little kids with parents, some extreme obesity cases, the homeless gal who attributed her scrapes and abrasions to dog bites but they didn't look like dog bites, they looked like ... maybe she'd been shackled on her legs? There were people with parents in their 90s. 

It was decided I'd get a CAT scan of my thoracic region. The doctors kept promising something for the pain and I kept asking but I was high and dry there. I'd told them I'd taken 400mg of ibuprofen at about 6AM and 400mg of ibuprofen at noon. Maybe that was why. Anyway the CAT scan was great. I went into this big machine that had soft lights in nice colors, pink and blue and green, and I was careful not to move a muscle, remembering the book I'd been shown by Dr. Allison at the Blue Cross Animal Hospital, of what fine detail can be gotten with X-rays. 

Then it was back out to waiting in the wheelchair. Eventually one of the docs, a very nice young Asian lady, told me they'd found no fractures, just "a lot" of arthritis. "Arthritis!" I exclaimed. "Well, general degenerative conditions...." later I heard them say the same thing to a patient which I'm pretty sure was one of the old parents in their 90s, taken to the ER by their kids. 

Lovely. So at least I know there's no major fracture or something. So, more waiting and eventually it was my turn to go into one of the little rooms, I was (finally) handed a little cup of pills and some water, which I eagerly gulped down. I was told about my prescriptions, Tylenol 500s, a blood pressure pill, a muscle relaxant, those little pills to be taken 1/2 at a time, once a day. And lidocaine patches. 

I was to pick those things up at the Valley Medical pharmacy that's way down on McKee and something and I said, "That's very difficult for me to get to! Is there a clinic here at O'Conner?" Yes there was so they changed it, not the papers, but sent the prescriptions to there. A clinic I could just walk to. And I walked to it, and they were having trouble with their printer. I advised that there may be a small shred of paper, crinkled up, caught in there or even paper dust. I'm magic with printers. And just my words ... fixed the printer. 

So  I got my pills but they didn't have the lidocaine patches and I said I didn't need 'em. I don't think the lidocaine would penetrate far enough to where the problem is. But I got the pills and a neat little pill cutter. And none of this cost me a dime because of Medi-Cal. 

Now, with the pills and papers stuffed into my little OSH tool bag/overnight bag, I had the problem of getting home. I had $24 on me. I remembered the #23 bus going right by O'Conner but that was years ago. I went to the bus stop but now it was for some other bus I've never even heard of and may not even run very often or very late. I needed a #23. 

Just to make sure of my directions, I asked a couple of nice Indian guys if Stevens Creek was "that way" and they assured me it was. I thanked them and started walking. It was a couple of blocks, then I had to cross it and walk down to find a bus stop. I waited and waited, a #523 went by, then finally a #23. I'd actually tried flagging down a couple of cabs that went by, but they apparently were going to pick up a fare or something. My $24 would have at least gotten me to Midtown Safeway where I could take money out of an ATM and pay the rest of the way to the shop here. 

But that would be too easy. I got on the bus, full of people who all smelled like cigarette butts. I rode that smelly thing all the way to the Paseo de San Antonio light rail stop - the driver skipped right by the Convention Center stop which I'd wanted but he'd done me a favor because both the blue and green line stop at Paseo de San Antonio station and I was able to save 15 minutes by getting on the blue line. 

I got off at the Karina station, and walked up to the gas station to use their ATM and got $40 out. That was a $2.50 charge but I didn't care. I went to the Denny's and got the double cheese burger but with no cheese. That must have been a half-pound burger and it took some work to eat it all. There was a hobo right out of Central Casting who came in and sat in the little booth near me (I was sitting at the counter) and at one point I offered him my food, the 2nd patty, the buns, and enough lettuce etc left over to make a good big burger, but in his unintelligible hobo muttering he managed to convey that he didn't want it. Then he ordered the T-bone steak. 

I finished up, paid, with the tip $24, and called a cab. The local cab company has the number, after the area code, 777-7777. It went pretty smoothly. First I dealt with a robo-voice, then the robo-voice confirmed cab no. 1717 was coming, then the actually guy with cab #1717 called me and I told him where I was (I'd walked to the literal corner of Brokaw and First) and pretty soon he picked me up. I gave directions for the quickest, easiest way to get here. The robo-voice had said the trip should cost $17-something, and the cabbie, a nice Indian guy, said he'd take $15, and I said I'll pay him $20 so he was very happy. He said driving a cab used to be a good job but since the last 5 years there's so much competition. 

The guys next door working at the cleaning place were just leaving for the evening and I'm sure it was something for them to talk about, seeing the guy next door being dropped off by a cab. 

I got back in here and the two large-ish things that had to go out the next day by FedEx were still sitting there with the boxes I'd picked out. As G-d is my witness, I packed the damned things and I packed them well, labeled them, all ready to pick up. 

Ken showed up and I had things set up where he sat in my chair and I lay on my bed on top of the sleeping bag and we talked about the usual things. But he'd forgotten his check book. But he gave me some of his gabapentin capsules, advising me to take two at bed time. I took one, along with the other medicines, and I actually slept.