An Exciting Day
Starting your day out with a mammogram is not quite the same as a colonoscopy, to be sure, but for those of us women of a certain age but not yet in the prime of our lives, it's the next best thing. Just trust me on this. I won't go into the details except to say, if we needed further evidence that Satan exists, look no further than your nearest mammography center.But I have a question. This is a What Would You Do kind of question. As I was leaving the hospital (because that is where Satan resides), I was walking down the long corridor toward the parking garage and coming towards me from the other wing (the in-patient wing, I presume) was an annorexic-looking woman (not really a girl...her hair was graying), clad only in a long t-shirt. She was barefoot and holding a wad of toilet paper (I am assuming) against her arm where it appeared she had pulled out an IV. I figured she was headed for the vending machine or something but instead she followed me out the door and got into a waiting vehicle. She was escaping from the hospital! What would you do? This isn't the same thing as someone escaping from jail, I suppose. I mean, it's her own life afterall. The car she got in was a nice Ford Expedition driven by a respectable looking citizen, not some drug crazed teenager or anything. Why would someone do this? I would have to walk all the way back to the front desk to report anything, and by then, she's long gone. They'll figure it out soon enough. But I pity the poor woman without enough sense to at least have her IV properly removed, let alone stay for whatever other treatment she required.
posted by Gwynne @ 11:48 AM
9 Comments:
Wow, this sort of stuff never happens to me! The jury is out on whether that's good or bad!
I assume she didn't appreciate Satan's hospitality... Heh. This is true. ;-) Aside from appearing sickly and emaciated, she didn't seem distressed, but she did seem fairly determined to continue quickly on her way, even after I turned around and gave her my most concerned look.
Now that I think about it, I feel bad about not reporting it because now they are probably wasting valuable resources trying to track her down in a large hospital full of expensive and dangerous equipment and pharmaceuticals. I wonder how often this happens?
You know, being a goody two shoes, I probably would've walked into the closest room and either found a nurse/medical person or found a call button to report it. But then again, I might just've thought that's what I should do and continued along and spent the next couple of days second guessing myself.
I definitely would've blogged about it though :)
In all, I'm kinda glad that wasn't my call. But I'll bet it took your mind off the joy that is the mammogram.
I think I would've reported the incident, if only so that the hospital staff wouldn't wonder what had happened to the woman.
Yeah, I think you guys are right. I feel badly about not reporting it, from the hospital's perspective. At the time, I was more concerned about her but countered myself with "it's her business." Well, next time, I'll know what to do. ;-)
Aiyyyeee! The dreaded Medical Clowns! [running from the room, screaming]
You've been watching Foo's dreams, haven't you, Eric? ;-)
I just flashed on "Killer Klowns from Outer Space,".
What it must be to live inside your head. It keeps the rest of us on our toes. ;-)
what if there were some sort of Robin Cook thing going on, and they were trying to kill her. and by reporting it, you may have turned her back over into their clutches to polish her off?
Yes, see? That is in fact what I worried about! If she were a girl, I probably would have stopped her and marched her back up to the front desk (yeah, right...she would have run from me and there would have been no hope of catching her, but I would have felt somewhat responsible), but a grown woman is responsible for herself, I figured.
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