I spoke to two friends and their families about their heart surgeries ~ one who was about to undergo his and the other who was home after his.   

 That was just a few days ago,  not realizing that just a short time later I would wind up in the emergency room with a heart problem of my own.

My symptoms happened on a Saturday so there was little hope of reaching my doctor to get her advice but a colleague of hers did call me back and told me I should get it checked out.  Of course I was worried about Covid, even though I've been inoculated and boosted.  I had a heart attack about two years ago and one sign that I had water in  my lungs was pain in my shoulder blades when I grabbed something.  This time that happened when I grabbed the railing to walk upstairs and when I pulled myself up off the toilet  by grabbing a door knob.  I felt short of breath and there was slight wheezing when I breathed.

My fear of  Covid was soon replaced by the most extreme case of coughing I've ever heard coming from across the hall.  My roommate was Ann, a retired nurse and she was also alarmed by the coughing.  We both told nurses to close the door to our room as they were leaving because not only was the coughing out of control but the man afflicted with it was too.

 The poor man kept getting up and trying to leave.  He must have been dealing with some form of dementia.  He was on a bed that had an occupancy sensor and when he rolled off it a  recording would come on in a loud and commanding voice, saying "Get back into bed.  You're in a hospital and you are not allowed to leave."  This was followed by an announcement by one  of the nurses over the loud speaker - " The patient in bed 3 is naked and on the run again."

This not only provided entertainment for Ann and me but was also alarming  because despite everything,  he continued with the hacking cough and we did not want him exposing himself to us – not his nakedness but his constant coughing.

Meanwhile my cardiologist who was also my roommate's doctor kept promising us both that we could leave the next day, as long as we could walk a certain distance in the hall without getting dizzy.

  I had been in that hospital two years before and the food was delicious.  It was like staying at a high class hotel.  Now it was just the opposite.  When I ordered an omelet I got  rubbery scrambled eggs, when I ordered quiche I got the same thing.

The food was so bad that my roommate kept returning her tray completely untouched.  She began losing weight .

 When she asked if her son could bring her food from a restaurant, she was told that it would have to be salt free.  I think he ignored that stipulation.

 Finally Ann got released.  I was told that the house doctor was the one running the ship  now and she required that I walk the assigned distance without getting dizzy.  A man named Mike was supposed to accompany me on this walk .   

He was supposed to show up at 11. At 11:30 I was told that he would arrive in 10 minutes and they would send him to me first.  The  next thing I knew I heard him walking another old lady  down the hall.  It was then that I decided to declare a mutiny.  

If the house doctor was the captain of the ship, I refused to  remain in lock-down and proceeded to walk down the hall on my own and managed to walk  further than I had the day before without dizziness.  

Of course I was repremanded for doing that and when my son came they asked him if I had ever done anything like that before.  He  said no but I could have thought of a few occasions when I had.

Two years before that I had been on that floor and got such good care from two nurses aides that I wrote a column about them.  I sent a copy of it to the head nurse and she posted it on the bulletin board and  gave them both copies of  it to take home.  

I included  a picture of Kelly but not of Roy. After finding that Kelly still worked there, I fully intended to walk to her area when she was on duty just to visit.  I never got a chance to do that.  One of the aides who I was talking to about her, turned out to be Roy.  

When we finally recognized each other, he yelled, " It was You."  He teased me about not including a picture of him and I said   I would take a picture of him for the column I was writing now and would write that he was  annoyed about it. 

He said, "Please don't do that."  I never did see Kelly and I never chased  Roy down the hall to take his picture.