Hi all,
As if Ian wasn't enough, my most favorite cat, Max the Manx, swindled his way into our bedroom, and chased Juliet. I tried to grab him and get him away from her and he nearly took my arm off. A day later a nurse with the Red Cross who was going door to door checking on residents who had survived Ian, and I told her about my arm. She looked at it and told me to go to the hospital.

So Ed and I pulled ourselves together and drove to the emergency room of Cape Coral Hospital. They gave me a tetanus shot and started me on antibiotic I.V. therapy. They also admitted me. I stayed 5 days getting daily intravenous antibiotics.

I was in a 4-bed ward separated by curtains, there was a bathroom but no shower. I never got a hospital gown and didn't complain because I was warmer in the clothes I came in with. My bedding escalated from one "blanket" to 5 because I was freezing. I trust you all have been hospitalized at least once and know that what a hospital calls a blanket is really a heavyish sheet.

Anyway I slept without changing, couldn't get a shower, couldn't eat because need I tell you that the food was so bad I could only pick at it. If you want to diet, go to the hospital. Every day my arm got checked. About the 3rd day they cut into it and drained it. After that it was checked for inflammation. Meanwhile I was getting intravenous antibiotics and was told that when I was allowed to switch to pills, I could go home.

So today I was finally told at 11 a.m. that I could switch to pills and the "go home" nightmare began. The doctor did not give the order to the nursing station, he did not send instructions to the hospital pharmacy, and he disappeared. He wasn't answering his calls either. Time wore on. Ed and Sol came to pick me up at 1 p.m. and we didn't leave until 7:30 p.m. and only because the nurse got in touch with the doctor's nurse practitioner and she put everything into place for me to leave. If I had just walked out, Medicare wouldn't have paid the bill.

So I looked up Millenium, the corporation the hospital is part of, got the names of the board members, the CEO, the president, and I will write a letter that is so scathing that the doctor in question may well be chastised or fired. The hospital staff urged me on. They're sick of him too. And I wasn't the only patient waiting for him to sign off so they could leave.

xx, Teal