Following my early Friday morning pain episode, which deeply concerned both my traveling companion and my hosts, there was a long discussion about what would be the best way to proceed -- whether I should check myself into the hospital, or even continue to remain on the island at all. Both the current settled minister and the minister emeritus also become involved in our conversation, as well as eventually an ER Doc and the hospital caseworker...both of whom are good friends of the ME. This after a ride in with the firefighters, and about a three-hour wait in an examination room, while my pain gradually subsided (as I knew it would) and the hospital officials tried to explain to all concerned why they couldn't just admit me to the hospital because I would sleep more comfortably there. So they sent me home after walking me around the hospital a little, with instructions to carry on with my usual routine and return if things got any worse.
Meanwhile, the CSM lined me up with a friend and parishioner who does live-in home health care as part of a business he calls "Good Works!" Six years earlier, just as I was getting ready to leave the island, he and I had become acquainted at a going-away party for yet another parishioner. He was wearing a magnificent saffron shirt from a Buddhist monastery/meditation center where he had been for awhile, and I was wearing a white greek fisherman's hat with a rainbow-dove pin attached in the front, so I had quickly christened us "Captain Rainbow and Saffron Boy," and it was a great relief to all of us that he was available to stay with me the rest of the weekend, especially since PB needed to get back to the mainland Saturday morning so she could preach at her own church Sunday.
So, so far so good. Went to bed Friday night feeling fine and looking forward to a great weekend, but woke up Saturday morning once again feeling "acute and intractable back pain," which lingered on until nearly two in the afternoon, when I finally discovered that one of the reasons it hadn't dissipated was that I had forgotten to take my ordinary morning painkillers earlier that morning! Unfortunately, at that point one can't merely double the dose and try to catch up; instead, I simply took my regular afternoon dose (plus the daily meds I had also missed that morning) and added as much breakthrough as I though was appropriate. That night I got in a car and drove to the home of some other parishioners who had invited me for a cookout, but I knew within 20 minutes of arriving that I wasn't going to be able to do it, so it was back to the ER at the Nantucket Cottage Hospital, where this time I was admitted right away
Of course, now I faced an entirely different set of problems. Slept like a baby, but I was terribly concerned that the attending physician wouldn't discharge me in time to preach on Sunday morning! Shouldn't have worried though. Not only did my cohorts from the cook-out slip me in a plate of ribs the night before, but the attending physician wrote the orders and the day nurse had me packed up and out the door before I could even finish my breakfast. Plenty of time up at church too, since for some reason I though the service started at 10 am, instead of the far more civilized 10:45. Which gave me plenty of time to catch up with more church friends as I thought a little about my message for the day: "Washed Away & Back Again with the Outgoing Tide." On Nantucket, a "Washed-Ashore" is someone who is not native to the island, but who typically lives there year round and shares many of the same hardships and concerns of the Islanders themselves. But more about that in my next post.
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