Cannot Wait to Get to Heaven - Fannie Flagg [59]
A male nurse barked at her, “Just relax, Mrs. Shimfissle, calm down.”
Elner said to herself, “I am calm, you’re the one who’s huffing and puffing.”
Once the elevator doors opened again, they ran down another hall and then right through the open door of the intensive care unit. Once inside they quickly sat her up, removed her robe, and started hooking her up to different machines a mile a minute. As they were doing this, Elner was not happy about it, and said, “You know what, I need to get on home. Norma and them are here to get me, and I don’t think I fed Sonny yet.” But the doctor and the nurses completely ignored her and acted like she wasn’t even there. They just kept talking about her vital signs, looking at screens, and shouting out numbers. Elner figured she must be all right, though, because in between the numbers, they kept answering “Stable” and “Normal” to the doctor’s questions. Elner made a vow right then and there that if she ever got out of there, she would never come back to a hospital, because once they get you, you can’t get away. “Does this hurt?” the doctor asked as he pushed all over her body. But he did not wait for an answer, and said, “Let’s get her downstairs. I need an MRI right away.” And off she went again…being pushed down another hall, and pushed onto another elevator.
When they got downstairs, they rolled Elner into a large room that had what looked to Elner like a big washing machine.
As they lifted her from one gurney to another one, she asked, “Am I going in that thing?”
“Just for a little while,” said a nice new nurse she had not seen before.
“Is it going to hurt?”
“No, you won’t feel a thing, Mrs. Shimfissle.”
“What’s it for?”
“We just want to look and make sure you don’t have any broken bones or anything. It won’t take long. Are you claustrophobic?”
“I don’t think so…never had been.”
“I can give you headphones, if you like. Is there any special kind of music you prefer?”
“That might be nice. Do you have any good gospel music? I like Minnie Oatman.”
The nurse shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I could try to get a radio station.”
“Oh, do you get Bud and Jay?”
“Who? I can try, do you know the station?”
“No, that’s all right, they are probably off the air by now, I don’t need to listen to anything.”
“All right, Mrs. Shimfissle, I’m going to be right in the next room,” the nurse said. “And I’ll come back as soon as we are finished, OK?”
As she started heading into the machine, Elner realized she had no idea what time it was. The last time she had looked at a clock, it was eight in the morning, and now Linda was here all the way from St. Louis. “Where had the day gone?” she wondered.
Nurse Calls Ruby Back
2:59 PM
Boots Carroll was at her station at the hospital doing her paperwork when the order came down from upstairs to change Mrs. Shimfissle’s condition from deceased to stable. “What?” she said, as she read the change. She immediately went upstairs, marched down the hall with paper in hand, and found the floor nurse who had called her in the first place. “What in the Sam Hill is going on with Mrs. Shimfissle’s report?”
Her original source looked very distressed and whispered to her, “Dr. Henson made a mistake, she’s back in OR and sitting up and talking.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure…. They just rolled her by here two minutes ago, and she sat up and waved at me.”
“Good God! Heads are going to roll on this one. Does her family know yet?”
“Oh, yes. They were in the room when the old woman started talking. The niece fainted dead away.” She pointed down the hall, and Boots could see a group of people standing around talking.
“I’ll go down and see them in a minute, but I need to make a phone call first.”
Boots picked up the phone, but could not reach Ruby at home. She then called the nurses’ exchange and they gave her Ruby’s emergency cell number.
Ruby was at Elner’s, busy going through her refrigerator,