Fun Times

My E.R. Adventures,


Or stuck in pain limbo.

By: Brian Saul



I arrived at the ER at around 5:30 on the afternoon of the 14th of September. One of the security personnel got a wheel chair for me since I could not walk. Yes there is a back story I will get to that later. The chair he brought for me was freakin HUGE, twice as wide as any I have ever seen, it would have comfortably held two of me with room for bags, it felt like some kind of Disney ride with only me in it.

He wheeled me towards the ER entrance, the side entrance; the big entrance is only for Ambulances. The side entrance is a 32 inch door and would not accommodate the ultra large carriage that I was in, so back to the drawing board to get a smaller size wheel chair, that accomplished we then entered the “sick zone” the place was not full, maybe 5 or 6 people ahead of me, not bad, with the pain I am in I figured I would take a priority and move to the head of the waiting list. Nope, there was a child that had bumped her head sitting and fidgeting that was called in ahead of me, and then,, an all stop , ambulances arrived, the base police arrived and the local cops arrived, not sure what happened but my bet was on an idiot driving like an idiot and causing an accident. So, 2 hours later in extreme pain, I am still waiting and as we all know, if your mind is not occupied then the pain magnifies, hence why I am writing this particular article.

Anyway, still here, and I suppose the back story should be told now, as I sit in pain I might as well go on with it, so…

8 days ago, arthritis started worming it’s way into my left foot, this is nothing new, I have it everywhere, so I am used to a twinge of pain most every day, this however decided to come on with vengeance, the left foot effectively as Amber said after seeing the picture, “looks like a piñata Dad”, LOL, gotta love my daughters, the pain was such that there was no way I could put my foot on the floor much less weight on it, as I said this is almost a normal occurrence this time however it spread and fast.

The right hand decided to join the party and became a useless but quite painful appendage, the left knee not to be left out joined the party, and so there was no jealousy the right foot jumped on the band wagon as well. Now picture this, both legs and one arm totally unworkable and screaming with pain, and here I am trying to do the normal routines of daily care and feeding of myself. LOL a funny sight I assure you, I do have an electric wheel chair, but getting in and out of it is an adventure in and of it’s self. To put it bluntly I was so worn out from the pain and the limited ability that I had to rest between bouts of getting in and out of the chair before I could do anything.

Now on to the fun part: I endured this for as I said 8 days before I ran out of the meds, now normally this only would last 3 or 4 days, and only hit me in one or two spots, this tried to take over in a blitzkrieg maneuver. Having run out of options I finally had to break down and call for help, if you know me at all you know I hated that with a passion but I called, got a ride to the ER and here we are, any way on with the story..

So after waiting in the lobby, I was finally called back, told the doc what it was what I needed and why, he looked at me smiled and said “played this game before have you”? so I got a steroid shot a shot of my old pal morphine a butt load of pain pills and scripts for the anti inflamitories, this time however the doc after the exam told me to stay in the chair for at least another week, no driving for that time and after that to use the crutches ONLY if I could use the hand. HA HA,, funny, the hand is defunct so basically I am in solitary confinement at the house for the next few weeks.

Worst part of this is I have more or less no outside communication other than the phone. I do not have internet and dam I practically live in the intertubes Al Gore invented.

As I said before unoccupied mind yada yada. So I have started writing again, my agent is ecstatic, why I do not know it is not like I am writing to be published again, well at least not yet, but I have to admit the sense of freedom and fun I used to have with writing is back and the muse has come to life again so we shall see.

However the reason I thought to explain my absence from the social scene is more or less a way to accept my new limits, limits that I swear I will over come in time, as needful as the wheel chair is at this time, I am determined to drop kick that sucker into the back room as quickly as I can. NO I do not want sympathy nor condolences Holy smokes I would much prefer if my infallibilities were not even remarked on. What I just wanted to say was,,,,Look out world I will be back.

Thanks all for listening to my ramblings, rants and gut rumbles. I am fine as always and I will perhaps by the end of the month get back to my duties and start hassling everyone as soon as I can.

God Bless and smile when ya think of me trying to buy left handed toilet paper.

Brian Saul