I have resisted starting this series but day by day it becomes sillier and sillier. I’ll be careful not to share all the little details as I would bore you to death and scare the hell out of to the extent you would never ever go to any hospital.

A good family friend, the shirt tail relative type, has been having a rough go -health wise lately. We’ll cause him Uncle Bob. Uncle Bob has no family so I am his emergency medical contact.

Uncle Bob awhile back woke in a big pool of blood and was rushed to local hospital. The local hospital was one of Detroit’s Big Three hospitals. In the Detroit area it is a household name.

While in ICU, Uncle Bob had just three questions he asked me in a very weak condition.

1) He was very cold and wanted to be warmer.

2) He was in a lot of pain and wanted it to be addressed.

3) What had happened to him, how was he being treated and would he be OK ?

To me, these sounded like reasonable questions.

I called in his ICU nurse. Uncle Bob, told her I had paperwork on file at that hospital to be the emergency contact and told her it was fine to speak in front of me.

These are her responses to the questions above.

1) She couldn’t really do anything to make it warmer.

2) She had no idea if he could have any drugs to help his pain (after reviewing his chart).

3) She could not tell him his condition as it was confidential.

 

I’ll stop here for now but the saga has just begun!