To E.R. Is Human

Here's some free advice for those of you who write your own blog, and, from time to time, can't think of anything new or interesting about which to write. Get yourself admitted to the emergency room for a few hours. You'll come away with a font of ideas.
That's what I did on Friday. I really didn't want to go. But, just mention to your doctor that you have pains in your chest, and watch him panic. He insisted. Had I realized how enlightening the visit would be, I'd have made up the chest pain thing just to go.
I had so many interesting experiences in the course of three short hours. I got to listen to doctors and nurses and technicians discuss their own personal lives. One nurse had to go home because her washing machine was overflowing. And another told of her toilet running constantly, which drained her well dry, so she couldn't take a shower, and because she had baby spittle all over her, she couldn't come to work. All these folks had so many personal problems that I came to the conclusion that the reason it's called an emergency room is because everybody that works there has so many of them.
It certainly wasn't like the emergency room on E.R. There was no hostage taking, or bomb scares, or escaped prisoners, or crashing heliocopters whatsoever. There was an elderly woman dying in the bed next to me (not my bed, another bed altogether).
She was just a curtain away, and was responsible for me having quite a scare early on in my visit. I was lying there on my little bed. Nurses and others were hooking me up, and I heard someone ask, "If your heart should stop, do you want us to take measures to revive you?"
"Of course," I shreiked. Someone pointed out that I was overhearing the conversation on the other side of the curtain.
It seemed to me that if a nurse was going to be having such a conversation, it would have been thoughtful to not subject me to it. But, perhaps I'm thinking too much of myself.
Anyway, this poor old woman's blood count was down to three, which I take it was not so good. What was worse than her blood count was the non-stop mouth of the nurse attending to her. I lost count of the number of times the nurse reminded the old lady that she might die. I think it's nice to try and encourage someone, but telling the patient that she had lived a good life and that it might be time to go home to meet her maker seemed to be a bit distasteful. Maybe it's just me.
This death-obsessed nurse was also telling all the other nurses how badly the old gal was doing. The nurse seemed just a little too excited if you ask me. I fully expected at any moment she would invite me to participate in an emergency room pool to guess the exact minute the old lady would check out, so to speak.
At least the old lady was getting constant attention. I guess the personnel in the emergency room figured I was just faking it. They virtually ignored me. I tried looking dead to see if I could get some attention.
I laid my head back, opened my mouth and let my tongue hang out, and rolled my eyes back in my head. I couldn't see myself, but I have the feeling I was looking pretty dead. Nurses would walk right by, glance at me and keep on going. Sure, they could see on the monitor that my heart was still beating, but you'd have thought they'd have at least asked me if I was still alive.
Finally, after about three hours, the doctor came in, told me that, based on the tests they had taken, I was suffering from acute hypochondria and sent me home.I apologized for not having some mysterious tropical disease. I would like to have been as exciting to my nurses as was the lady in the next bed.
I dressed and left the emergency room. I tried to look as pathetic as I could, so if anyone in the waiting room should see me, they'd think I must have had something really bad.
When I left, the old lady was still holding her own. I don't know what happened to her, but I'm really hoping she disappointed her nurse.