Today's post is from Ron Osterberg
Saturday around noon while returning from a routine doctor’s visit, Georgie casually mentioned that she had mild chest pains, her hands felt puffy and she gained five pounds. Those were things to talk about, not worry about. She was too young for a heart attack. What could it hurt if her hands swelled a little? And Georgie couldn’t gain weight on a bet. A few pounds for her was a good thing.
Once home, however, her chest pains intensified, but she continued insisting that they weren’t serious. She wanted rest, not a doctor. That mild arguing went on for fifteen or twenty minutes when she winced in obvious pain.
I picked her up and carried her to the car, pushed her into the back seat and drove away. All the while she was protesting that she didn’t want to go. By then though, taking even ten seconds to argue was too long. The drive to the hospital took fewer than five minutes.
At the ER, nurses were rushing out with a wheel chair before the car stopped. Georgie waved without turning around as they wheeled her through large swinging doors. That was the last time I saw Georgie alive.
No one paid special attention to me in the waiting room, which was strangely calming. A nurse asked Georgie’s religion. “Just for our records,” she said. I couldn’t put my finger on anything specific, but the hospital people were not acting normal. They were evasive and caring at the same time.
An hour after Georgie disappeared through the swinging doors, someone called me into a little room where two serious men waited. They were blunt and to the point.
“About an hour ago your wife stopped breathing and we couldn’t revive her.”
They said other things, but little else registered. I was in someone else’s body. This wasn’t happening to my wife and me. These things happened to others, not to us.
I went home, talked to the children and called people who came over. They would have done anything to help, but they couldn’t bring Georgie back.
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