Xiaoniu 小妞

Sunday was quite the day. We spent time at the ER, shopping at Adams in the mass chaos of pre-Thanksgiving shopping, enjoying the nice weather, working at the mall without lights and then travelling like usual. It was a busy day from 6am to 11pm.

We started the day early so that we could bring grandma to the ER. She has been coughing more than normal and eating a lot less than normal. Since she doesn’t talk much we usually take that as a sign that she is not feeling well. The last time she acted and sounded like this she had pneumonia. After waking up everybody at the house and dragging grandma for a blustery cold trip to the ER we spent about 2.5 hours waiting around.

Shortly before we left the staff tried giving her an IV needle to take blood and give her liquids. We’ve been through this before more than once and tried and tried again to explain to them that it is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT to give her an IV. You need to use a very small needle and use delicate care. Two nurses tried and ended up sticking her 5 times before they got one in. Not long after somebody from the lab came by to tell us they didn’t take enough blood and that they needed to stick her again. By now we were upset and had to go through this again.

Come to find out this woman actually knew what she was doing. She knows the nurses don’t know what they are doing and explained how she was going to do it. She did it right the first time. Using an IV needle small enough for an infant and what looks to be plenty of experience she got the blood she needed and grandma wasn’t complaining. Next time we go we will ask for this person. She told us what she used just in case we can’t get her to help. At least we can teach the nurses something before grandma has to suffer. Each time they “missed” they ended up poking through her vein causing blood to go under her skin. It makes a bubble of blood and I’m sure it isn’t comfortable. Idiots!

We left, but Jason stayed with her. They waited for a while and finally found out that the nurses were waiting for her to pee so they could take a urine sample. NOBODY TOLD JASON!! She wears an adult daiper. If she has to pee she pees where she is. These idiots didn’t even bother to ask if the 96 year old woman was wearing one. They just assumed. After hours of waiting for no reason they ended up giving her a catheter. It took two tries. After 7 horrible hours at the hospital Jason took grandma home. Nothing wrong found in the tests and nothing found on the x-rays.

I can’t tell you how pissed we are having to go through this trouble. The staff at the hospital make the whole thing difficult. Even the guy that took her vitals wasn’t good. We just arrived and had to wait for the triage nurse to check us in. This nurse comes over to ask if she was the patient. I said yes and they he started rolling her away. He never told me what he was doing or why he was taking her away. I got upset and had to stop him. The guy could have just told me. Idiots!!

After all this we went to the mall to get Feifei and went shopping. We wanted some fresh veggies so we went to Adams. As usual it was packed and a mad house. It is always busy there and the holidays makes it worse. The baby slept through most of it, which meant I did most of the shopping myself. By the time he woke up we were getting other stuff and I was able to walk around with him in my arms pulling stuff from shelves.

We went home and I raked a couple bags of leaves. I needed to do something physical and there were enough leaves to rake so I took advantage of the nice weather and picked them up. Sue wasn’t feeling good after the car trip, motion sickness, so I took James for a walk. We took a stroll around the neighborhood. As usual he enjoyed the trip and was happy as could be when we got back.

By then we needed to get back to work. Amy was working while we went shopping. A break for her (no baby) and a break for us too (no restaurant). When we got back we found out that they didn’t have full power. It was partially out for nearly 2 hours. You could tell that some power was getting in, but there just wasn’t enough to run the mall. Our register worked fine and the steam table stayed on, but all the lights were out and the signs were flickering. Looked to me like there was not enough voltage running through the lines.

After talking to a few people I found out what was going on. An electric line fell near Burlington. Central Hudson had to come and restore power. By the time that happened most of the stores already closed. We were the only restaurant open besides the pizza joint. So, we got pretty much whatever food business there was.

The funniest part of this whole event is that the rumors that came out as to the cause. One guy said there were 6-8 fire trucks outside. Another said that Burlington had an electric fire. Another said that Central Hudson had a problem. If you put it together you can find the truth: the line fell off the building near Burlington, where one firetruck was watching the line and Central Hudson came to fix it.

One thing good about the mall is that if there is a fire they will evacuate. This happend a couple weeks ago when somebody lit the cardboard bundles outside K-mart on fire. When that happened they kicked everybody out. The mall was okay. The only mistake they made was they forgot to tell the Dentist. He was in his store the whole time and didn’t know there was an evacuation.

After all this we had a normal Sunday. A quick dinner and driving home late at night. I’m glad it is all over. That was enough for one Sunday. I like lazy Sunday’s myself.