Knitting in the ER

Ever since I got my new job, my sleep schedule has been a little off. It takes awhile to get used to getting up an hour and fifteen minutes earlier every morning and going to bed an hour earlier at night. I have worked through the grief of not being able to watch "The Daily Show" or the "The Colbert Report" until the next evening. I have gotten used to the communte. I love my new job. So, when I was awakened on Thursday morning, I was a bit disoriented.

I was in that sleep that is so wonderful. You are lying there peacefully, your brain is on standby with those little, soft snore brainwaves, your body is completely relaxed into the mattress, work and stress are a million miles away. Then it happens. "Get up!" drifts around the edges of your consciousness. Your brain perks up a touch thinking it is the beginnings of a cool dream where you are the latest Bond girl to Pierce Brosnan's Bond. Only, it isn't a cool dream. It is Hubby, who is kneeling next to the bed yelling at you to wake up.

This was my fate at 2 a.m. Thursday. As I prize myself out of a deep, comforting sleep, I hear the following, "Get up! You are going to have to take me to the hospital." Okay. When I hear the preceding statement, I am curious. Why does hubby have to go to the hospital? Has he had explosive diarrhea with projectile vomiting? Did he fall out of bed and break his butt? Does he have blood pouring from every orifice? So I ask the logical question, "What's wrong?" The response is not helpful. I am informed that I need to get up, get dressed, take Hubby to the hospital and not to screw around. Only the threat of slow motion gets me the answer I need. Hubby reveals that he believes he has a kidney stone.

I get up, brush my teeth (no sense killing or maiming innocent people), dress and throw some knitting into my purse. Might as well do something constructive.

Well, let me just say that emergency rooms aren't built on any customer service model that includes customer satisfaction or comfort. The only people who aren't in pain are those on Demerol - which they gave Hubby, but did not even offer me a Tylenol 3. The furniture for those who have accompanied their loved one was designed by those in charge of Gitmo. Believe me when I say if I were being questioned and not allowed to stand up and move around, I would confess to anything after sitting in the guest chair for three hours, just to end the misery.

I pull my knitting out of my bag thinking that I will be able to do some knitting while I am waiting by someone from the medical staff to grace us with their presence and confirm or deny that Hubby will most likely die or pass his kidney stone. What I do not realize is that it is next to impossible to knit sitting in a chair designed by Quasimodo. After several unsuccessful attempts to knit or obtain a tiny bit of pain medication to make the wait bearable, I am reduced to watching late, week night television, while wondering if I am participating in some study about the best way to get detainees to talk.

Now, I generally believe most knitters when they tell me that they knit everywhere. The next time I read about how someone finished a Shetland shawl while waiting for their husband to get their leg casted after playing weekend warrior, I will snort and say to myself, "Yeah, right! Only if they brought their own chair and Vicodin."