This morning started off like no other morning in my 3+ years with Frank. I woke up around 7:30 am feeling a tap on my back. Wanting to give him a "good morning" hug, I moved closer to him, and then I heard him say "You might need to take me to the hospital. I've got a migraine that hasn't gone away, and I've already taken medication."
Frank suffers from chronic migraines, it's genetic, too. He takes a daily medication to prevent them (Verapamil), but should one come anyway, he takes a migraine pain reliever (Frova) that works 95% of the time. The other 5% of the time, he may need to be hospitalized to make the migraine go away. We met in 2006, and I learned during the first few months that he tended to have a migraine once a year that was bad enough to hospitalize him. The last migraine that was this bad was back in 2005. So, he's gone 5 years without needing to go in.
So we got out of bed, got dressed, and I drove him to the ER at St. David's Hospital, a location he directed me to. I dropped him off, parked, and then went in expecting to find him waiting to be received. To my amazement, he was already sitting in the office behind those sliding partitions answering questions about his pain and his current state. After a few questions, he was led to a bed where the doctor soon came, and a nurse started an IV treatment. After signing some papers, a few trips to the bathroom, and some much needed rest, we were discharged maybe 90 minutes later. We really didn't stay there long!
On our way out, a lady, sitting in the waiting room, barefoot, asked if she could have a ride home. "I've been here all night, needing medication for my fibromyalgia." Coincidentally, I had seen this woman earlier that morning upon arrival. After I had parked my car, upon entering the ER waiting room, she had stopped me outside asking if I had a cigarette I could give her. I told her I didn't have any since I don't smoke. I apologized, and went my way to Frank. So here she was again, asking for help, and looking very pitiful, as if waiting for someone to give her some ounce of human compassion, some mercy. Feeling caught between a rock and a hard place, I both wanted to do the humane thing and come to her aid, but I also wanted to get Frank home from the hospital!
"Where do you live?" I asked.
"I leave by East Riverside and Wickersham, at my son's apartment."
"Oh, I know where that is. Well, I can call a cab for you."
"I don't have any money."
"I have some cash I can give you."
I opened my phone and was about to start dialing 411 to find a cab company, until I thought to myself, As nervous as this makes me, giving a stranger a ride, taking her myself would be the easiest way to go...and it's actually on our way home. Turning to Frank, I asked him in Spanish (assuming she wouldn't understand) "Do you have a problem if we take her with us?"
"Nope."
I looked at her. "We'll take you home, ma'am."
She followed us to our car, and I had the most awkward 10 minutes in my car I think I've ever had. The woman didn't know where we were going, since she thought we were downtown. Hardly. She was from Oregon and was only staying with her son for a few days. He couldn't come to get her because he was waiting for a mechanic to show up to fix his broken-down vehicle. Nearing the apartment complex, she went further in her request for charity asking for some money for a meal.
God works in *mysterious* ways.
This past weekend, I had gone downtown with some friends and pulled out some cash from the ATM. I still had some left over (and I seldom carry cash; I don't like to) so upon arriving, I gave her some money.
We arrived home, and Frank went back to sleep since his high dosage of Benadryl was still in his system, knocking him out for about another 2-3 hours.
What. a. morning!
No comments:
Post a Comment