I
got to his house a little before 5. The
door was locked, which surprised me, because when he knows I am coming over he
usually manages to unlock it. And when he
didn’t answer my knocks right away I was beginning to get nervous. Just as I was pulling out my phone to call,
though, he finally opened it and stumbled back toward his bedroom. His gait was very unsteady as he moved slowly
from couch to chair to wall before collapsing into his bed. As he stumbled along he said, “For some
reason I’m having trouble seeing out of my left eye.” That’s when he finally turned so I could see
his face. The whole left side of his
face was swollen, and his eye was swollen completely shut. Explained the lack of vision, I guess. I described his face to him, and he was
surprised about the swelling. I
hesitantly ventured, “You know, I think this might be one of those times when
we need to call 9-1-1.” I was floored
when he actually agreed with me, but I didn’t hesitate.
The
fire fighters from station 7 were there in less than five minutes doing their
assessment. The ambulance had to come
from downtown, but it was on its way as well.
Before it arrived one of the fire fighters, who shall heretofore remain
anonymous, went out to move the truck to give them room to load up. Suddenly we heard the loud blare of the
distinctive siren. It only lasted a few
seconds, but it might have been enough to give a few of the neighbors an …
unexpected … wake-up call. I asked if
that meant the ambulance was there, and through a stifled chuckle I heard, “Sure,
that must be it.” Kudos to the
crew. They did a great job.
The
ambulance did arrive just seconds later with their gear and the travel seat
they would use to carry Jerry down the stairs.
As the paramedic was writing down all the drugs Jerry takes, she asked
if the patient was related to Nathan Vaughan.
I said he was the patient’s great nephew and my son. She looked up rather abruptly and said, “Oh,
now I see your hat.” Yep, that would me …
Chappy. That settled, they got Jerry
into the ambulance and I followed them in to the hospital. All that and we still arrived at UTMB before 6
a.m. Gotta get there early to do your
most effective waiting. He had a CT scan,
blood work and a quarantine test. He’s
in quarantine because at his last visit they removed his sigmoid colon. Apparently that makes you an automatic
quarantine for the next three times you come in.
Jerry
started talking to me around 7. He was reminiscing
about his days growing up and how his good ol’days intersected with so often
with my Mom and Dad’s. It quickly became
evident that this was some good stuff. I
told him he needed to record all the stories, but he said, “It works better
when you’re just sitting around talking to someone – like you - and they ask an
occasional question or two. So there was
my job description for the next hour or so.
Listen and ask a few questions. It
didn’t take me long top start taking notes, and I ended up with five pages of
memories. They were quite disjointed as
he was saying whatever came to his mind, but I plan to send them to his
kids. I know I would get a kick out of
having stories like that. In fact,
because several were about my own Dad, I’ll just keep a copy for myself as
well.
The
“treatise of the past” was the only really good thing we took home from the
experience. The docs never did give a satisfactory
answer for the swelling, which, by the way finally went down on its own. Jerry was feeling much better, so we left and
went IHOP for some breakfast. And yet another adventure came to an end. Bring on the next one.
Jeremiah
29:11-14 says, “’For I know the plans I
have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray
to me, and I will listen to you. You
will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.’”
Father,
thank you for the first responder team that took care of Uncle Jerry. May they all have peace and rest and joy
within their families. Amen.
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