a rough night

around 7 last night we went to a movie, on the way there zoe suddenly became really ill. her symptoms rapidly progressed pointing towards something wrong with her stomach, tang really pushed the idea of going to a hospital. we got a cab and were then in under 5 minutes.

i was actually really impressed with the hospital, i think i would rather go there than the maine medical center, but the hospital was also nearly empty. zoe was immediately put in a wheel chair and rolled off to the doctor, she was seen with in 10 minutes.

we got a good doctor who said it was a fairly serious case of food-poisoning which later on was confirmed by the blood test. tang also developed food poisoning a few hours later, but not to the same extent. i however am fine, and i ate the same food, even some food off of zoe's plate, i am really lucky.

talking with the nurses was interesting. the nurses told zoe: "your skin is so white, it is so beautiful." zoe replied that she liked their hats, which were the traditional nurse hats from about 25 years ago. zoe laid on a stretcher for the rest of the night and slept.

when midnight came around they closed the treatment center and moved us to the emergency room for monitoring. they would not let zoe leaving until she could give them a urine sample, or become capable of doing so. zoe was so dehydrated there was no chance of it until the next morning. we were cleared to go home around 2 a.m. but zoe was not strong enough to leave until 6. it was strange staying there over night, i think the worst part about it was someone vomiting blood across the room (we really were in the emergency room).

i was really tempted to take a picture of zoe resting, but reframed from being so rude. if i had taken the picture you would have seen zoe on a stretcher in a hall with a dog lying on the floor behind her and some nurses having dinner. i also saw a cat, and later on heard it screaming somewhere behind the emergency room.

zoe is sleeping now in our upgraded (from $15 to $21) hotel room, now we have AC which is great. we went out for breakfast and zoe has successfully consumed a piece of toast and some a mango smoothie.

the really interesting thing about this whole experience is we did not need identification or insurance at the hospital. I had a hard time understanding the paper work and found myself being addressed as mr. zoe high. the entire bill including medication, seeing the doctor, and staying there over night was as much as our hotel room.