TO ER IS HUMAN

I spent the whole day, yesterday, in the emergency room at Henrico Doctor's. My daughter broke and dislocated several bones in her ankle. I'd have to say that the staff in the ER (I like to use these medical terms whenever I can) was very kind and professional. However the ER physician may be in the wrong line of work.
He's a great doctor, I'm sure. It's just that he tends to panic a bit. When he looked at my daughter's ankle, he shreiked, "What took you so long to get in here?" You know how on those Looney Tunes cartoons, the character's eyes spring out of his head? I've seen Daffy Duck do that a million times. Well, it was kinda like that when the doctor looked at my daughter's ankle.
I called my wife to let her know what was going on and as I was telling her that my daughter had broken a bone, the doctor comes rushing back into her room (this time doing a great Road Runner impersonation). He hears me and shouts, "No! It's worse than that." It's that sort of reaction from your doctor that helps to keep you calm in stressful times.
The doctor informs us that he's going to put my daughter to sleep. I start to panic. I had a dog when I was a kid and my parents had to put him to sleep. I didn't think my daughter's broken ankle warranted her being put down. But, he went on to explain that they were going to knock her out while he pushed and shoved and twisted her ankle to get it back in place. Which is what he did, except for two things. He forgot to knock her out and he failed to get it back into place.
When the nurse called us back into the room, the doctor calmly informed me of the results, "I was unbelieveably unsuccessful," he wailed." There I was standing in the examining room with my daughter crying because her bones had just been twisted and manipulated without anesthesia, and the doctor crying because of his unparalleled failure. I did the only thing I could think of to do. I started crying with them.
Later, an orthopedic specialist was brought in to do the manipulating and all went well. The only problem is that by the time my daughter got to the operating room, the anesthesiologist had to come in and tell her that, while it was unlikely, she could die during the procedure. She was then asked to sign a form that basically the hospital can use if a patient dies. It kind of says, "Hey, they told me I could be dead, and look, I am."
Speaking of dying...how about that BB gun thief in Richmond's Southside. The guy goes into a Baskin-Robbins and tries to hold them up using a BB gun. Now, that's stupid. If I was going to use a gun in a holdup attempt, I'd get something that could do the job. This guy didn't and now he's dead. The owner of the store asks the guy, "One bullet or two?" and then shot him in the head.
Now, here's the amazing part: The shootee...the thief, ran two blocks before he keeled over and eventuallly died. I can't run two blocks with zero bullets in me. The guy must have been in pretty good shape, especially for a dead man. I wonder if they have any sort of special olympics for people who have been mortally wounded.
Speaking of criminals, while my daughter was in the ER yesterday, they bring a guy into the next room and he's wearing handcuffs. He's being escorted by a police officer, and he's telling the police officer what great shape he's in. "I played soccer for nine years," he tells the officer. "I could have outrun you if I had wanted to."
Now this guy, we come to learn from eavesdropping, has hepatitis and a bad liver, and he's bragging about what great shape he's in. I don't know what he was in the emergency room for, but evidently, even with the hepatits, he's also in better shape than I am.
I just realized I don't have any clever ending to this. I hate to start a story I can't finish. But, I guess I can live with that. One thing for sure...I can't run, but I can ramble.