Journal of a Sabbatical

ER

January 4, 1998




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Nancy wasn't feeling well when we left the Moby Dick Marathon yesterday. She was feeling even less well this morning. Besides the fever and sore throat, she had shooting pains in her ankle. After breakfast and discussion, I went off to the cove by myself to look for the European widgeon and whatever all else might be there while Nancy called various doctor/insurance types to find out what to do.

I didn't find the mysterious widgeon. I ran into one other birder and a half dozen or so breaders. The other birder was methodically scanning the widgeons with his scope. As I was folding up my tripod, he asked me if I'd seen the European widgeon. "Nope," says I, "and I've looked at every single widgeon out there." He packed up his scope and left.

I did see:

100 or so ring billed gulls
500 Canada geese
68 American widgeons
99+ Atlantic mute swans
18 mallards
10 buffleheads
8 canvasbacks
6 crows
5 hooded mergansers
2 common mergansers
1 female common Goldeneye

Nothing new, but lots of fun nonetheless. The place was teeming with life. The mallards are starting to do their courtship displays. The buffleheads and mergansers put on a diving show worthy of the Olympics. The swans and the breaders do their little approach/avoidance thing. Old guys talk to the mallards in Portuguese. It's a different show every time.

I returned to Nancy's at the appointed time. She'd decided to go to the ER at Rhode Island Hospital - she'd talked to them on the phone and they said to come in. So I drove her over there. But first, she wanted lunch. Thinking it would be quick, I pulled up to the McDonald's drive thru on North Main Street (Nancy eats meat even though I don't). We proceeded to sit there inching along or just sitting for what seemed like forever. In real time, it was about 25 minutes. In perceived time, an eternity. This is the slowest drive thru on earth. I finally got to the speaker and the little dweeb said "I'll be with you in a minute" and vanished into radio silence for 5 more minutes. Finally, we ordered. Sometime later we got food and Coke. Then on to the ER.

Good thing we stopped for lunch even though it took forever. We were there a long time. Five and one half hours to be precise. I watched Green Bay stomp all over Tampa Bay - hmm, the battle of the bays - a very old Cheers rerun, part of The Hunt for Red October, and whatever all else on the tv in the tiny little bare waiting room. All there was in this room: the tv mounted on the wall, hard plastic chairs. Nothing else. Bare walls. No magazines. No nothing. Every once in awhile Nancy would return between tests, wearing one of those little hospital bracelets so they wouldn't lose her. Her ankle continued to hurt. They noticed she had a fever. So far so good. Since we'd been sitting all day at the Moby Dick Marathon, the doctors decided they'd better do an ultrasound to rule out a blood clot. Nancy vanished to some remote part of the hospital as the Broncos/Chiefs game started. Egads, people get blood clots from watching this much football.

Every once in awhile a gurney went by in the hallway bearing somebody who looked gray. Different person every time, but they all looked gray. A nurse parked a screaming Portuguese woman in the hall on a gurney right outside the waiting room, so she could watch tv through the window I guess. This woman was in too much pain to watch football. All she did was cry and scream in pain. Some relative or other was with her and tried to comfort her, but she just kept screaming. I wished I could do something for her.

An intern came by to check the score on the Denver/KC game. No score yet. I guess you could say the defense dominated the first quarter.

Finally Nancy returned with the good news: a virus and a sprained ankle - stay off it and out of work for two days, take anti-inflammatories and rest. The virus has been going around among clients where she works. But how do you sprain an ankle reading Moby Dick?

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