Yesterday Mr. Misery Guts (I didn't call him that to his face) got dressed and announced it was time to go to the emergency room.

They did a chest x-ray and CT scan, and his gallbladder is badly infected. They put him in IV fluids and an antibiotic.

We were surprised when they said he needed to be transferred to a bigger hospital where an interventional radiologist could drain it, and then once the infection is gone, he'd have to have a non-emergency gall bladder removal.


For a couple of moments I was really shocked because they said 'we're transferring him to University Hospital' because to us that always meant the one down in Denver. All I could think about was trying to deal with the traffic getting there, and getting around on that big campus and then I remembered they tore that one down, and now it might be on the site of the old Denver airport, which probably isn't better from a traffic point of view. But then I realized all the local big hospitals are part of that chain, so they were talking about going to the next big towns to us, Loveland or Fort Collins. Loveland is where we do all our shopping, and Fort Collins is an hour away. So not as big a deal.


It was tough watching him get loaded onto a gurney and whisked off in a very sleek-looking ambulance similar to the picture, but not as many windows. We agreed there is no need for me to go there as long as he's got everything he needs. Certainly none of this breathless drama of following the ambulance down there in my car and camping out at the hospital. We'll save that for another time.




He called this morning, said the doctor came in and told him it looks like this infection has been festering for a long time because the walls of the gallbladder are thickened, and it appears to have split in two. After this morning's procedure to drain the infection, he will have to wear a drainage tube/bag for six weeks to make sure all the infection is gone.


His temperature is down to normal, but he's still got a bad headache and very painful ear - we're not sure what the deal is with that, and he's not sure when that started. They'll probably address it once he gets past this gall bladder thing which he refers to as The Tip of the Iceberg, meaning he expects more things to go wrong with him because that's what happened to his dad.


Meanwhile, he's got a private room, lots of movie channels on the TV, glucose drip and a landline phone. He'll be there another night, at least. I'm sure they look at him as a sweet-tempered elderly man, which he is.

And I'm at home with all the comforts, keeping the hummingbird feeders full and watering the lawn.