Kidney Saga part 4

I ended up not sleeping long on the night of the fourth/fifth. I was woken at 1am by a swarm of people entering my room and disconnecting my bed from the outlets and stuff (and yeah, I had my phone charger by then and it was disconnected too) and suddenly I was being whisked - in the bed - down the hall. The nurses explained they had an isolation case coming in and needed the room for that person. It was very early in the morning and I was very not awake, but I had no problem with it.

I was put in a room with another person, and to my surprise, even though it was 1am, the television was on. I was still drowsy and confused, and it took them awhile to settle me down. One of the nurses accidentally spilled a little water on my night mask, so they grabbed me a fresh one and some ear plugs. The woman watching tv waited until there was a quiet moment and asked if I wanted the television off. I said yes.

I don't watch a lot of TV anymore. I tend to watch specific shows and sometimes have to be coerced into even doing that. Eric and I generally watch one show with dinner every night, or I probably wouldn't watch it at all. But a lot of people enjoy having the tube on whenever they can. It's a comfort. My parents tend to leave the television on. I'm cool with it. I just prefer not to be in the room with it if I can help it. As morning rolled round, my roommate turned on the TV again and I suspected I would be listening to all the football games all day long. I decided to grin and bear it.

But it didn't happen, as the doctors concerned about my kidneys won the argument, and decided to send me to KADLEC in Richland, the larger regional hospital that could do a proper biopsy and determine what was really wrong with me. By 11am arrangements had been made. My roommate, who was in because her knee replacement had broken, said good-bye as two EMTS got me strapped to a stretcher and wheeled me out to an ambulance.

I used to think of an ambulance as a mini-hospital on wheels. It's not. It's a tin shed strapped to a truck that can go at high speeds. There are lots of shelves and seating and such, but it's still just a shed. And it rattles a lot on the freeway. The EMTs made sure to pack a bunch of hot blankets around me before we left, which helped, but it was still getting pretty cold by the time we reached Richland and the big hospital. I was wheeled up to a large solo room with a spectacular view and, happily for my boredom, access to a Pokestop.

The staff set me up, and I had more tests run, including an ultrasound no one told me about. One thing that happened that I didn't realize until later was that everyone forgot I needed food. I hadn't had lunch at Prosser, and no one brought dinner because the food protocols at KADLEC were different. Then, after dinnertime, I was supposed to fast for the biopsy. I didn't realize what was happening at the time because the meals at Prosser had been so big I wasn't hungry. That would change.