Unemployment Day 7 - Brandi, my wife, gets stitches.

Snow snow go away come again some other day. More of the white stuff today.

With the exception of the snow, my mood is good this morning. I have been very productive, calling people, setting up meetings. It feels like momentum. A big thanks to all of you who have stopped by and taken the time to send me your good wishes, mojo, thoughts, prayers.

I have also been getting a lot of support AND CONTACT NAMES from friends in my neighborhood. One of advantage of a small town I guess is that everyone knows someone who runs an advertising agency.

Yesterday, I spent all day at the Akron General Emergency room. It's like this you see. My wife Brandi was out jogging and she fell and smashed her chin, nothing else just her chin, into the concrete.

Because she was gone for what seemed like a long time, I was outside looking for her when she came walking up. I saw the very bloodied Kleenex against her chin and when she took it away and said "I fell" I saw what looked like a small mouth. She had a serious laceration just under her chin. So we mobilized quickly. Friends took Whit, we rushed to the hospital, and then all that fast acting business came to a halt. The trauma patients were coming in by the numbers yesterday so it simply took a long time. A very long time. Clearly this was all a clever ploy on her part to confirm our health insurance was still functioning - important to know when you are unemployed. She is a crafty one, that Brandi.

We got to know a lot of the people in the waiting room and joked for a long time about waiting with some old fella who had broken his ankle. Of course, he didn't know he'd broken his ankle at first so he walked around on his foot for half a day messing everything up more inside.

Memorable moments and overheard snippets:

Have you ever had kidney stones? My sister went through a period where she seemed to get them over and over. So I am familiar somewhat with the crippling pain. So was the middle aged woman, doubled-over and groaning and crying for the whole time we were in the waiting room. It was hard to watch but trauma comes first. I asked this realy nice old attendant fella if he couldn't give her something while she waited and he said only doctors. I told him he looked like a doctor but he wasn't swayed. One guy, after hours of watching her suffer, went nuts, starting yelling for them to do something, and finally ripped his gown off, stood up from the wheelchair he was in and stormed out shirtless, ripping those little monitor pad stickies from his chest. He had pants on, don't worry.

There was an older man in the waiting room with us for quite a while, all by himself, and after a while he was visited by a nurse and taken back to see someone. You could tell the news he'd received was not good. Hours later, when we were finally back in one of the rooms getting stitched up, as I walked by on my way to the restroom I saw him with two doctors sitting in a small waiting area off the hallway. He looked broken, and one of the doctors had his hand on his shoulder. A few minutes later I got back to Brandi's room and was sitting in the doorway and saw them get up and walk him down the hall, heard the doctor say "Give my condolences to your family." Jesus, what a heavy and strange feeling to be in the presence of souls leaving the world.

An older woman who was in with her Dad was explaining to someone who I don't think wanted to know, "Everytime he bends it blood squirts out." Graphic, eh? She was also bitching to all the other patients and to staff about the waiting, and waiting and waiting. I was in the hall while Brandi was getting her wound irrigated and she looked at me grinning and said "I'm working myself into a dither". Maybe she said tither. Either way I said, "Keep going so we can see how they code call it." CODE WHITE, CODE WHITE, we have a patient dither in exam room C."

Speaking of code calls. There was a CODE ADAM alarm while we were waiting to get stitched. Scary stuff. The all clear came a few minutes later. Whew.

Long day my friends. LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG day. 4 stitches, one death, several ankle bone fragments and endless squirts of blood later we came home to a catatonic dog who really really had to piss.