Soup Supper Gone Bad

4-2-09

Last night my papa had to be admitted to the emergency room, and I had to take him.  It was a pretty scary experience, and it didn’t help that my grandma wouldn’t calm down.  It started off at my church.  My mom and I were meeting my grandparents for the soup supper.  When we walked in the front door, my papa was sitting in a chair.  He was supposed to be in the kitchen and help serving.

He said he just didn’t feel good, and wanted to go home.  So he and my grandma were going to go home.  My mom and went to eat, and in about five minutes my grandma comes in and says that he can’t drive home.  My grandma can’t drive, so I was going to take the two of them.  They told us to finish out soup, and when I was done I went out and found the two of them.  Then my mom would meet me at their house.  My grandpa was sweating really bad.  It was really freaky.  Our pastor was concerned too.

As I was leaving the church, I asked my grandparents, "Which way should I go?  Left or right?"  You can get to their house going either direction.

Then my papa leaned back in his chair and said, "To the emergency room."

That’s when my grandma flipped out a bit.  I calmly took the left I needed to get to the hospital and drove there.  I got to enter the emergency patient’s garage door with my papa’s Park Avenue, which was weird.  I felt like I wasn’t authorized to be there.  Then a lady came and took my papa in a wheelchair; my grandma followed.  After parking the car, I went into the waiting room.  I sat there awkwardly by myself and then tried to get ahold of my mother.  It took a long time because she didn’t have her cell phone, and she wasn’t answering my grandparents phone.  I even called the church, but she had already left.

My whole family was panicking and freaking out.  My cousin Rachel, who lives outside of D.C., was calling everyone trying to figure out what was going on.  The doctor didn’t know what was wrong right away.  His blood sugar was a bit high, but not all that bad.  Once the rest of the family showed up, I left to go let Blitzen out and play with him a little.  He had been in the house alone for a while.

When I came back, they still didn’t know what was wrong, but I couldn’t stay any longer.  I had a lot of homework to finish up.  No one kept in touch with me to tell me what was up, which was really irritating.  Finally I called my grandparents house to see if anyone was home.  My uncle Richard answered and told me that it was a bowel obstruction.  I was relieved that it wasn’t a heart attack or something.  They kept him overnight.

Rachel kept calling everybody.  Wanting to know what kind of test they were running, if Papa had gone to the bathroom in the last four days, and who was waiting at the hospital.  I hate having to be the calm collected one in my family.

EDIT:  Just so everyone knows, my papa is happy, healthy, and home.