27 June
Well, yesterday was certainly interesting!
When I got home I went upstairs and said to Cynthia and Fran "Wanna see my souvenir from the Fleadh?" and showed them an oxygen mask and told them this story.
I e-mailed my friend Andria and asked if I'd run into her and her husband there (pretty unlikely, since we always miss each other!) and she wrote back that she had hurt her foot and couldn't go and if I knew anyone who could use a ticket.
"Why, I can! I didn't get a ticket yet and would be happy to buy it from you!" I e-mailed back at her, but she insisted on giving it to me, which I thought was terribly sweet, and gave me her husband's cellphone number so that I could ring him when I got there and he'd give it to me.
So I went over and got there and looked around for a payphone...and couldn't find one! I asked an employee where the payphones were, and he said inside, after you gave your ticket.
"But I need to call someone inside who has my ticket!"
"Sorry."
Determined not to go back into the city just to make a damned phone call, I looked around for someone with a cellphone that I could borrow, and I saw a sign saying "Golf Centre", a miniature golf place, and guessed rightly that they'd damn well have a payphone available there.
On my way to meet Sean, I passed the guy who said that there were no phones and said "If anyone else asks you, there are phones in the Golf Centre!"
So I waited by the barrier for Sean and he gave me the ticket and we parted ways, me saying "If I run into you again, I'm getting a present for Andria and I'll give it to you!"
Man, it was hot.
Really really hot. Just brutal. I had brought a litre of water with me, but that was gone in the first hour, so I had to buy some over priced water and Pepsi from the food stand.
I had some sausage and beans and chips for lunch, which were lovely. I wonder why English beans taste better? I think it must be the brand (Heinz meanz beanz, you know) and these were definitely those--the kind that I haven't had since 1996.
I wandered around a bit, but it was sort of hard to concentrate, it was so hot and the sun was so blinding and there was no shade anywhere.
Saw Lucinda Williams, who was just swell. Elvis Costello, the headliner, joined her for a couple of songs, but I was off to the side and couldn't see him--I didn't break my neck trying, though, 'cause I knew I'd see him that night (foreshadowing!).
Wow was it ever hot.
I had brought sunscreen, but I kept sweating it off my forehead and into my right eye, which made it water, which made my nose start to run, so after Lucinda finished, I staggered back over to the drink stand and got another bottle of water and a handful of napkins and I wet a napkin and put it against my eye, wadded up under my sunglasses and that was better.
My head was really starting to hurt, though.
Then John Prine was on, and I saw most of his set.
Wow, he was wonderful. I was slightly distracted by the horrid guys behind me who felt the need to comment on every single line of every single song, but other than that it was great.
He is the coolest old man in the world, besides Johnny Cash. And he sang Angel From Montgomery, one of my favourite songs, and those horrible guys shut the hell up for it, so my happiness was complete.
When he was over, though, I was really wobbly on my feet.
There was nothing else I wanted to see until the Saw Doctors came on in a couple of hours, and that was when the good stuff really started, Saw Doctors then Luka Bloom then Black 47 then Elvis Costello!
So I thought I'd find a place to sit and sip my water and try to recover. I found a bit of shade, and sat and tried to read, but I felt just awful, my head pounding and my skin so hot, so I thought that I'd try to take a little nap.
I dozed a bit, but I wasn't feeling any better, really nauseous and weak and the Saw Doctors started (I was near enough to hear them) but I couldn't get up and go over and watch.
Finally, I realized that there was no way I was up for anything like another 4-5 hours of this, even after the sun went down, so I decided to get up and go home.
I limped in the direction of the exit for a few steps, then realized that I was so near the EMT stand that I might as well go there first and get some aspirin or something for the incredible pounding in my head.
So I went over, got aspirin and a bottle of water, swallowed them, and proceeded to vomit them straight up again, along with everything else I had eaten that day. I think I vomited about six times. I'm a very thorough person.
The paramedics immediately put me on a golf cart and drove me to the ambulance, despite my protests that I was fine, really.
"Ma'am, you are breathing 32 times a minute and that's too fast!"
How could he tell that after only seeing me breathe around eight times? Not that I doubt that he was right, but that was quite a quick diagnosis!
So they bundled me onto the ambulance and hooked me up to the oxygen and asked me how much I had to drink.
"Nothing, really, I don't drink, it's just the heat!"
So they took my information, and I tried hard to make myself understood through the oxygen mask.
Paramedic: "How old are you, Kymm?"
Me: "Thirty-four."
Paramedic (after being distracted for a moment): "What did you say? Thirty-nine?"
Me (wounded): "Thirty-four!"
As Cynthia and Fran said afterwards when I was telling them this story, had I not suffered enough without being aged five years by a paramedic?
There were two other guys in my ambulance, John and Thomas, who were much worse off than I was.
Both drunk off their asses, one strapped down to a gurney, and so out of it that he kept thinking that the paramedics were cops.
"Please officer, I'm fine, please let me go."
"We're not policemen, John, we're paramedics."
The other one, Thomas, was very polite and when asked how he was feeling, kept saying that he was perfectly fine, and sounding exactly like me when I said that I was perfectly fine, though he clearly was not perfectly fine at all. I guess paramedics ignore that sentence as a rule, as it is nearly always a giant lie!
They both threw up all over themselves on the ride to St. Luke's.
By the time we got to the hospital, I really felt better, but I knew that once you step into an ambulance, you kinda have to go through the whole routine, because who can be certain that you're really fine just because you say you are (see above).
So I rode in on a wheelchair and was examined by the asthma doctor, who said with disgust in his voice "There is no wheezing! Take her to the front!" (I didn't say I had an asthma attack, I just said that I have asthma!) and took my oxygen away from me, then got triaged and gladly gave up my wheelchair to an old lady with chest pains, then waited in the waiting room forever, then gave my insurance info, then waited forever some more before finally being seen.
Had I managed to work up a wheeze, I would have been gone already by then!
I was put into a room, then waited forever, then an extremely young-looking girl doctor came in and I told my story again.
She seemed very jumpy and kept reassuring me, when I needed no reassurance at all. when she went behind me and lifted my shirt a little, I turned to see what she wanted and she said in a very tense voice "It's okay, I just need to see your back," and I reassured her right back, "That's fine, what do you need me to do?" "Take off your shirt." So I did.
She checked my back and she checked my stomach, then told me to put my shirt on and wait, which I did, for another forever. I was very glad that I had brought three magazines with me, because I certainly needed them all!
After a bit, a group of three doctors came to the door and a woman with very long hair said:
"We're just doing rounds, have you been seen by a doctor yet?"
"Yes I have."
"What's wrong with you?"
"I was at the music festival and was overcome by the heat."
Another doctor: "Man, that happened to everybody! That was some festival!"
After a bit more waiting, the woman doctor with the very long hair came in to examine me some more and said:
"Miss Zuckert, I understand that you have distinguished yourself from all of the other festival patients by not being abusive!"
"Well, I think that I was the only one who wasn't drunk!"
"No, I think they'd be abusive anyway."
Which may explain why the previous doctor was in such a state!
So she checked me over and said that I was fine, if slightly sunburned on my neck from a bit that I missed with the sunscreen and I asked her for some Tylenol for my head, which still hurt a bit, and she said that the nurse would come and check me out and give me some.
Which she did, after a bit more waiting, then I went home and told the story to Cynthia and Fran.
So let's see, what were the good things about yesterday?
1. Saw Lucinda Williams and John Prine live, and he sang "Angel From Montgomery".
2. Got a pewter hair clip to go with the one that I got last year.
3. Got a bunch of lovely oxygen and a free souvenir oxygen mask that I can use in a show sometime.
4. Got to ride in an ambulance with the siren going and everything.
5. Won the prize for being the Best Fleadh Patient.
6. Actually got some colour on my face!
Comes right down to it, though, even with all those pluses, I'd rather have the rain.
Today's horoscope:
Control emerges as an issue with household members today. Balance your power with love and a happy result can occur.
One year ago today:
"You need to be more organized, or you will be so all over the place that you never accomplish anything!"
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Last Updated Sun 27 June 15:30:09 1999