The Ride

"We'll go straight to the U of A. It's going to be busy in emerg."

"....yeah."

Gasp.

This has gotta be hemolysis.

Wait. Hemolysis doesn't act like this.

Gasp.

Blood levels didn't change after surgery... I didn't change my steroid dosage. Nothing could have gone downhill that fast. I've been out less than a day.

Gasp.

Vanessa and I are speeding towards Leduc. I start to sag, sink in my seat. My vision is swimming. I gasp just to get air. My head falls to the window. This is worse than a low blood level. I don't know what this is.

"Screw emergency. Let's go to your mom's and call an ambulance."

We get to my mother's. Within thirty seconds of the phone call, we hear sirens. The ambulance parks on the road, three paramedics emerge, bring the stretcher. I'm helped out of the car. At least the neighbors will have something to talk about. I manage to stand, and I'm piled onto the stretcher and into the back of the ambulance.

My mother calls the on-call hematologist at the U of A.

Liam, looking out the front window of the house, waves excitedly at the ambulance with the flashing lights.

I'm stuck with an IV and gravity-fed saline. I'm given oxygen.

"So, what can you tell us?"

"I was just released from the U of A. I recieved a laporoscopic splenectomy for auto-immune hemolytic anemia. It looks like I'm hemolyzing again."

Insert medical history. Take me to the U of A, please now.

The paramedics, normally confined to taking patients to the nearest hospital, receive approval to transport me to the U of A. Off we go.

Miraculously, within moments I'm feeling better. By the time Vanessa takes a seat in the front and we drive off, I'm having a brisk conversation with the female EMT about her latest practicum.

I chalk it up to lying down. Reclining. It's gotta be the oxygen. Maybe. The saline? This is mystifying.

We get to the U of A. The paramedic looks out the window:

"Uh oh."

"What?"

"We're offloading in the parking lot."

"What does that mean?"

"It means it's so busy, we can't even back in. Like, ten hour wait busy."


My mind blanks. Ten hours in an emergency waiting room?

I'm wheeled in, give my history. We park next to a row of other paramedics, beside other stretchers... alongside a waiting room packed to the gills with coughing, moaning, silent, angry, disquieted people.

In less than five minutes, I'm in a trauma room, being stared down by the same hematologist that discharged me less than a day ago.

Dr. Hamilton, you look very concerned.