10 Things I have learned from the last 8 days in Canada
Most of these things were learned approximately 13 hours ago…
- I have asthma… being in Illinois I had almost forgotten this fact. Coming back to Calgary has been an overwhelming reminder of this.
- Hospital Emergency rooms are a great place to people watch from 1:00am to 8:00am on New Years Eve… especially when you are waiting for your name to be called so you don’t fall asleep!
- Not breathing well no longer means priority in the ER waiting room (as long as you can suck enough air back to make your blood oxygen level okay).
- If you have a puncture wound in your head… you get priority. I was okay with this!
- The Discovery Channel has an entire show (I think it is called “Prehistoric Park”) where people pretend to wrestle with dinosaurs and other random insects like the crocodile hunter does… and they play it over and over again in the middle of the night.
- The emergency room was too small for the amount of people they have, so if you’re not “too sick” you get put into a nice little chair, surrounded by many others who are not “too sick” and stuck in front of a TV. Not the most private of places but it got me inside faster I suppose.
- Hospital gowns are still the same as they were 10 years ago when I was last in the ER… draft up the back included. I never thought I would be so thankful in a hospital to be told I could keep my pants on under my hospital gown. They want to make us feel more comfortable since we are all waiting in those chairs described above, and it was cold in there!
- The hospital wrist bands are not nearly as cool as they were when I was a kid.
- They can pulverize a kidney stone with a laser. How do they do that? (I overheard another conversation from my chair).
- It IS possible to knit a whole sweater in one week… if that is essentially all you do.
