Cold Pepsi served on hard ice

 There I was thinking I was King Kong being retired and driving around in my tractor pushing snow and all that.  Next thing I know I am in the hospital with blood squirting out of my arm.  Shizz happens.  But this isn’t about me, this is about the staff at the hospital that saved my life.  
They are like superheroes up there.  Take the time to thank all the nurses and health practitioners out there that have put up with Covid, low pay, ridiculous hours, and putting themselves in harm’s way.  Because when you need them, you need ‘em.
 I must be getting old, because I don’t remember slipping on the ice all that much when I was younger and certainly didn’t have to visit the emergency room.  Last time I broke my arm was when I was nine years old.  My mom said, “Listen here mister if you think I am taking you to the ER for a simple compound fracture and squirting blood, you got another thing coming.  Get the duct tape and some paper towels we will have this fixed in no time.  And stand on the porch, I don’t need blood getting all over the house.”
 
With all this snow, there is ice everywhere especially at my house.  As I slipped on the ice and was falling to the ground, I saw my life pass before me and thought, well that was boring.  Most of the highlights were me praying for snow, then shoveling, snow, and I seemed to have spent a lot of time at the principals’ office as I remembered all of them quite well.
 After I slipped on the ice, I laid there looking up at the blue sky wondering if I was dead, was this it?  My first thought was I must have made it to heaven because it sure wasn’t hot and none of my relatives were there, but then I realized I was lying in a puddle of ice water wheezing and freezing.  The cat looked on and seemed to be thinking “Well I guess humans do not always land on their feet when they are thrown in the air.”
 I landed the unexpected dismount as gracefully as a pancake that has been flipped high in the air and landed on the floor; the fall knocked the breath out of me but what really ticked me off was I dropped my Pepsi.
 I come in the house dripping in blood and the too kind and loving wife looked up over her glasses and said, “If you are going to drip blood all over you probably should wait in the garage.”  She is so calm.  We bandaged me up with paper towels and scotch tape and she sent me to the hospital.
I stumbled into the emergency room looking like Bruce Willis in the best Christmas movie ever, Die Hard.  You know the scene where Bruce blows up the entire building and runs through broken glass in bare feet to get the bad guy.
 Fortunately, the nurses up there are trained to deal with these situations, and they promptly took my weight and got a copy of my insurance card.  Then they all took turns coming in and chuckling about my scotch tape bandage that I had improvised.
 When they removed the bandage, my arm squirted blood and they yelled, “Hey we got a squirter here.”  Since I had lost a lot of blood or it looked like I had, one of the nice nurses brought me a Pepsi since they didn’t want to waste real blood on me, and she knows I am seldom without my Pepsi so it would probably due in a pinch.
 I waited.  There is always waiting when you are in a hospital.  Like a well-trained dog, I heard  the rustling of paper in the adjacent room where they were feeding a nice elderly lady a cookie.  I yelled, “Hey maybe all of us could use a cookie.  You know…I just nearly died.”  So, my nice nurse, I will give her a pretend name and call her Abbie, because I can’t disclose her real name because of HIPAA regulations; brought me a cookie too.  This hospital visit was going well.  I will be curious to see how they bill my insurance.
 After a few x-rays and a short nap I finished up my cookie and Pepsi. They bandaged my arm and they were ready to send me home.  I overheard one of them say, “We’ve got to get him out of here before the dinner bell rings.  He is high maintenance.”
 But since we are talking about medical issues as a public service announcement I remind all of you to go get those tests you are supposed to get regularly.  You know what they are.  Go get your prostate exam so you will know what it feels like to be a Muppet.  Schedule your colonoscopy, mammogram, etc.
 And be nice to those health care people, the are like superheroes.  I can’t guarantee a cookie and Pepsi but like I said, “When you need them, you need ‘em.”