It was about six months ago that I got really sick with some kind of virus and ended up in the emergency room hooked up to an IV in the middle of the night (read about it here, here and here). Welcome to that same misery, revisited.

Brad got what we can only assume was the same exact thing, only this time we were on vacation. It was the last day before he was due to go home and I was heading to California. I came back during lunch of my conference (in Phoenix where he had joined me for the week), and he was in bed. This is a boy who loves to swim and spent most of the previous three days in the pool, so the fact that he was under the covers and not under the water in the middle of the day was troubling. He didn’t feel good.

By the time I got back to the room after the last session, he was really not doing good, experiencing all the same symptoms I had in November. I didn’t take him too seriously at first because this wasn’t the first time he’s had digestive issues, so I let him rest and went to dinner without him. When I got back he started talking about going to the hospital, and then I knew it was serious. You don’t ask to go to the hospital unless you’re feeling pretty awful. The whole night turned into a ridiculous comedy of errors, and because I wasn’t the sick one, I was even able to laugh at it at the time. Here’s what ensued, in bulleted form because a narrative would take the whole day, and it’s friday so screw that. Who would read it anyway?

• I ask the front desk where the nearest urgent care facility is and they direct me to the hospital emergency room.
• We need a ride to the hospital so I waste 10 minutes at the bell desk waiting for the shuttle to return. A few older guys tried to hit on me, asking if I was going to the bar with them. They lost interest when I told them I was taking my severely ill boyfriend to the emergency room.
• The shuttle agrees to take us, so I round up Brad, my purse and a trashcan (makeshift barf bag), and we wait again.
• It’s one wild ride to the hospital. The shuttle driver was the same one who nearly rolled the van (with us in it) earlier that week.
• At the ER, Brad immediately finds a couch in the waiting room while I get him checked in. When I finally join him, he’s in and out of the restroom so I decide to make some calls.
• I needed to change Brad’s flight. It was scheduled to leave at 5am the next day (we got to the hospital at about 9pm), and we knew there was no way he was getting on it, so I call. And I sit on hold. Forever.
• After 30 minutes I think something had to be wrong, so I call on my phone. And sat on hold.
• So now I’m listening to the same hold message looping, unsynchronized, in both ears for about 20 minutes until I finally gave up on my phone.

• Then my boss calls to check on us (she was at the conference with me), so I’m on both phones again.
• The one empty couch in the waiting area just happens to be right beneath the air conditioning vent, so we’re both freezing. Finally, soon after he was sent back out there from triage, we score a different, warmer, place to sit (or lay in B’s case).

  

• After a lot of waiting, B’s name was called. As soon as we walked through the double chrome doors, my phone call is dropped. An hour of sitting on hold, wasted.
• Brad is led to what must have been a child’s bed because he barely fits on it. And notice he’s using his sweatshirt as a pillow. I finally had to raid the linen area and smuggle him a pillow and a blanket that covered more than the top half of his body.

• Then we just sit, waiting, while various people come in and out and asked him the same questions. Finally someone gets the man an IV so he could start to feel better. I always tease him about the hose-like veins on his forearms. They look like they’re about to burst at any second. Guess where they stuck the IV.

• Brad gets two IV bags and some meds for his nausea, and he sleeps as peacefully as he can on his cot. Luckily I was thinking ahead and threw a book in my purse.
• Some time after 1am (I lost track) B is released. They write us a prescription and point us in the direction of the nearest Walgreens.
• So now here we are, walking around the streets of Scottsdale, AZ in the middle of the night looking for the bright red signs of a pharmacy.
• We find it and while Brad waits for his medicine, I call us a cab. Only they need the address of the Walgreens. No problem. I ask the cashier. He has no idea. While he fumbles around looking for it, a kind customer on his way out the door grabs his receipt and reads me the information I need. Cab’ll be there in 10 minutes.
• In the meantime I call to cancel the shuttle that was supposed to take B to the airport in an hour.
• While I’m on the phone, B gets his pills and he’s ready to go. We walk outside and see our cab driving around to the back of the building. I’m on the phone trying to confirm that yes I do want to cancel the damn shuttle while also trying to flag down our cab before it takes off without us.
• When I catch up to it, the driver starts yelling at me! Whatever dude, not what I need right now so shut the hell up and drive us to the Doubletree.
• Once there, Brad goes straight to our room while I talk to the front desk about a late checkout. One bright spot in the whole evening is how kind that particular clerk was. He even offered me a warm chocolate chip cookie.
• Back in the room, I try to change B’s flight online. Denied. So I call again, and guess what. I’m on hold again.
• I still need to pack both our suitcases, so I put the phone on speaker and start running around the room like a crazy woman.
• Brad needs water, so I leave the phone by his bed and head out for the vending machine. Sold out. Try the one upstairs. Sold out. Go to the front desk to ask about other machines. There’s nobody there. I wait. I call out. Nothing. I leave.
• I have no map of the resort and no clue where other vending might be, so I wander around the grounds for 10 minutes searching, in the middle of the night. Nothing.
• Get back to the room and the phone is no longer blaring the hold message. Brad got through and was told to go to the airport tomorrow and get on standby.
• We sleep.
• 8am and there’s a knock at the door. Suddenly housekeeping is coming in. I don’t react soon enough, so sickly Brad bounds across the room to shoo them away. Now I’m awake and can’t fall back asleep.
• We get out of bed at 9:30, load up our crap and head to the airport. Brad is still in rough shape, but he just wants to get home. My flight for San Diego doesn’t leave until after 4, but I want to see him off.
• B waits in a crazy long line at the ticket counter trying to get on standby. However, the guy at the desk basically tells him, Sorry you were in the hospital and missed your flight but all I can do is offer to sell you a ticket home for more than you paid on this whole trip originally. Brad, desperate to get home that day, buys the ticket.
• The whole time he’s in line, I’m watching our luggage in a seat nearby (in hindsight, I should have held his spot in line and let him, the sick one, sit down. I’m a bitch). I’m choking back tears the whole time because the idea of sending my sick boy home alone is killing me. When he walks back over to me, I can’t hold it anymore and start crying all over him.
• He walks me to a shuttle (my airline was in a different terminal) and we say goodbye.

Watching him walk away nearly broke my heart. I know when I was sick six months ago, the last thing I would have wanted to do is fly home alone. But Brad is a pretty tough fella.

If you got all the way through that, you rock. He’s feeling much better by the way—he reported yesterday that he’s 92% recovered. No more viruses please!