Part Deux

So Monday morning I come downstairs, after sleeping off the headache from Christmas day, to find my grandpa gagging into the kitchen sink. Grandma and Don were standing there watching, and Don kept saying, "I told you! Go to the emergency room!"

See, Grandpa has this thing where, once in a while, he gets food stuck in his throat for a couple of hours. He usually can get it out, though. But at this moment, he'd had it since the previous day. As he said, "I don't know if it's turkey or a piece o' hog." Meaning ham, in Grandpa speak.

So I spent my last day of vacation in the emergency room in Rice Lake. Gramps had a minor procedure performed, which consisted of a tube being stuck down his throat and dislodging the offending morsel. Grams and I waited about 2 hours, her snoozing off and on, me growing more annoyed by the second at Soccer Moms. I don't even know if they were Soccer Moms, but they fit the profile. And by profile, I mean they thought the universe revolved around their children. "Can we hurry this up? My children are getting hungry." Listen, lady, it was 11:30 when you came in. Your son only has a sore throat. You think you could have fed your other kids before you came here? Other people have actual emergencies. Hence the name of the room. Bee-yotch.

So the doc finally came out and bellowed, "Yup, there was turkey stuck in his throat!" I giggled nervously, glancing around the room. We were then told of Grandpa's narrowed esophagus and how he should make an appointment to have it stretched. For the rest of the day, Grandma repeated, "You have to learn to chew your food better." Then Gramps repeating, "It ain't got nothin' to do with chewing! It's my 'sophagus!"

Oh, and Gramps told his nurse that she could put her shoes under his bed anyday. And no, he wasn't that drugged up.

I worked Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday was my day off, and I planned to do some extra work at the CH library so that I could get some holiday pay. But Gramps made an appointment to have the surgery on his throat, which means I had to drive him home. So we were on the road by 6:30 to make his 8:30 appt. in Hayward. I waited in the lobby while Grams went with Gramps to his room. Around 10:30 Grams came in by me. I started to get up, thinking he was out of surgery, awake, etc. Oh, no. They were just now taking him into surgery. Apparently there were two emergency operations the doc had to perform first. Not that anyone bothered to tell me the whole time I was waiting. Then we waited almost another 2 hours before a nurse came and got us.

So I drove home, Gramps telling me how to drive the whole time. *deep sigh* Then I got a quick lunch and went to work at CH. Need that holiday pay, ya know.

In other news:
~Cara went back to Texas on Tuesday afternoon.
~Kristen's not coming to my house for New Year's after all, so I'll be parking my ass at my mom's playing board games and drinking cheap wine coolers and being generally bitter about my single status.
~I've been listening to my Michael Buble cd nonstop. So hot.
~My uncle Brad got me the complete season of The Oblongs, which I'd never heard of. It's a deformed cartoon family who live in toxic waste. Watched two episodes last night. Very funny. Will Ferrell is the voice of the dad, Bob, who doesn't have arms or legs but is awfully cheery.
~Nikki got me the first season of Ghost Hunters for Christmas, so I'm going to let the family join in on my obsession. Steve...*drool*