Act I:

Ok ok ok ok ok. Dad’s in the ER. My sister-the-doctor is in Holland. I am now Dr. E in a cab going from one side of town to another in rush hour. The recession has made this less harrowing. The upside of the downturn. I spoke to him on his cell and he seems able to talk notwithstanding a thickness sensation in his throat. Sounds like anxiety that his doctor daughter is away and the lawyer daughter is the only progeny available for a consult. Nevertheless, time to get comfy because it’ll be a long night in the ER for an 89 year-old having an anxiety attack and his daughter who is not THE doctor.

Act II:

My dad is not a sympathetic patient. He is impatient. He wants the VIP treatment because my sister is a doctor. The daughter-who-is-the-doctor is half a world away but he is invoking her aura. He is uncomfortable but can certainly breathe without effort. The discomfort is episodic at most. I don’t wish to be uncharitable about this but if he goes to an ER (as opposed to make an emergency appointment with his any one of his various doctors during the day), he has to wait. The good news is that he isn’t sick enough to go to the top of the list.

There are kids with masks (swine flu no doubt), crazy people and really sick and hurt people. Dad looks like he is just in from Florida and got separated from the tour bus.

I have to use the facilities but I am too scared of the gross public bathrooms here.

Act III:

Ok, so the doctors discharged Dad. We have dinner at a gross neighborhood diner. Ok not dinner, “eats”. I’ll let this pass (like kidney stone).

I suggested (in that way I have of being less than politic) that he see Jeff, his internist (a lovely man who is my sister’s colleague and has known Dad for over 20 years) tomorrow. He mentioned that he thought of that earlier but decided to go to the ER. I then suggested (in THAT way) that maybe (in the future, G-d forbid) he should think to call the doctor and have him meet him in the ER. I say this because Dad had time to go to the periodontist in between gasping episodes. Ok ok ok ok ok. So I suggested that tomorrow Dad call and get a walk-in appointment with Jeff tomorrow and Jeff will walk him over to a specialist (there all share offices in those hospital doctor’s office suites). Also he stopped taking some blood pressure pills (rightfully so, because they were making him dizzy) but he didn’t tell THAT doctor that he had stopped. Ok.

So I took him home and we had a lovely chat about Obama and the gross things in his (Dad’s, not Obama’s) fridge. His former colleague called to see how he was and suggested that Dad call and get an emergency appointment with the internist tomorrow who will walk him over to a specialist. Where did we hear that before???? But DR. COLLEAGUE is more persuasive than DR. DAUGHTER-who-is-a-lawyer. Hey, I may only be a lawyer but Dr. COLLEAGUE knows SQUAT about Dad’s condition.

Dad was feeling fine and so I am on my way home. He didn’t feel like getting into his jammies, so he will call me before he goes to bed. I hope he doesn’t stay up too late because I am exhausted.

Oh and in response to his asking if I was in a meeting when he tried to reach me, I said that I was glad he called me and that I would drop anything if he were in trouble. To which he responded, “well I had to call because you wouldn’t have called me tonight, so how would you know anything had happened?” Shoot me.

Epilogue: the next day

I lost a night’s sleep thinking I left my father alone, but he sounded good last night when he phoned and he sounded great this morning. I woke up in the night choking on my saliva in some sympathetic response to his condition.

Dad went to the doctor and he had xrays and it might be a reflux-related spasm (I had also mentioned that the yesterday, which he dismissed out of hand because I am the wrong daughter to have these ideas). He will have a swallowing test but he is in good spirits.