The best laid plans …always go astray.

And in the process scare the stuffing out of me and the S.O.-as well as my sister and my father.

Yesterday started well enough. We had decided that it might be a good idea to get out of the house. The S.O. wanted to get deals on Christmas decorations and I had suggested we go to see the NASA museum-anything but sit around the house all day. In hindsight we probably should have followed the latter course.

So off we set, six cylinders of Ford propulsion powering us around the string of malls that populate Shopping Mall USA.  Stopped at Home Depot and the S.O. joined the fray of picking up whatever Christmas decorations were still there and on 75% discount. My dad and I discussed the merits of various gas grills while she took forever to make up here mind. ( It is especially funny because if I have my way-we won’t be living anywhere we can hang the decorations next year!).

Finished we moved on to the NASA museum. Now it is an interesting place, if a but pricey if you ask me. We looked at the Saturn Five, both the model standing outside and the real one horizontally mounted in the big building.  From there we went over to the other building and to the Von Braun and other sections of the museum. I should have realized how much walking it was-but Dad was in good spirits and he said this was interesting.

After ab0ut 35 minutes of looking around, Dad said he was hungry. “Great” , I say, ” I am too, I’ll go get the car and we can go right away.” Not 10 seconds after I said that, then my Dad stumbled and looked like he was going to fall. My sister and I caught him and steered him over to a seat. I raced to find someone to get help. All I could find was a tour guide and I interrupted her tour , exclaiming “Can you help me-may father has passed out. We need medical assistance now!”  To her credit, she immediately dashed behind me and she called security on her walky talky phone thing.

My sister had my father sitting up and he was talking, but he did not look well.  They asked us if we wanted an ambulance. “You think?” Of course we want an ambulance-unbelievable. They did have a nurse on site-however to tell you the truth, I was not impressed with her approach to analyzing the problem. Neither was my sister-and she IS a trauma nurse. We knew the ambulance needed to be there ASAP. In about 10 minutes it showed up and the EMT’s were good. They got my Dad up, on the gurney and to the ambulance post haste. I raced to get to the car so I could follow.

30 minutes later found us at the hospital-in a waiting room thronged with people. Seriously it was standing room only. That was surprising to me-but then again perhaps I should not have been surprised. The hospital here is the medical center for the whole county. Dad having arrived by ambulance was given preferred customer status and gotten right to a bed / triage place. By now he was back in better spirits, his color was coming back,  and so was his temper. I took that as a good sign.

And so the rest of the day was spent in the waiting room shuffle. The doctors could find nothing wrong-save for a probable drop in his blood pressure and the fact that my father had probably over exerted himself. We took him back to the house about 9.  He wanted to eat, he said. The S.O. fed him whatever he wanted.

So today we are home. Dad slept fine last night he says and feels good today-but on consultation on all of us, we are going to watch DVD’s at home today.

Important lessons learned for me:

1) Have a plan in your own mind and be ready to know where you are going to go if you have to go to hospital.

2) Don’t always assume that a facility is ready to handle an emergency.

3) A person may be 88 and pretty healthy-but he is still 88. Don’t under estimate your father’s stubbornness at not saying what he needs.

Scary, although my father is still pretty upset that we made a fuss. I’ll take that as another good sign.