I know the way to our town's hospital emergency room well. Much of our family's history has played out there. But this trip was for me, Everything that led up to my night in ER makes more sense now, but that night I just wanted the pain that had kept up all day long to leave.

My son drove a little slowly, to miss known bumps in the road, and pulled into the only parking spot he could find. A nice policeman ushered me through security, and reminded me to turn off my phone. I mentioned that I hardly knew how to turn it on, besides trying to figure out how to turn the thing off. He got me to show him my phone, and patiently went through how to do such a simple thing. If I hadn't been hurting so much, I would have been embarrassed. But if you don't know, then you don't know. And now I understand how to make and receive cell phone calls. In time I may learn more about this computer,too.

I can't remember another family emergency that ended up in ER, where we didn't have to wait a while. the nice policeman headed me to a med tech, who started my paper work. He asked questions like, where I worked, and when I told him, he pointed out that not a long ways up in the mountains, beyond the nursing home where my job is, is where he teaches kayaking. Even with my pain, I could get excited that a medical caretaker enjoyed something more than dealing with patient care all the time.

But tonight, I was the patient. The next hospital staff took more medical history, and checked my vital signs, and soon they headed me to a skinny little examining room where much emergency equipment hung from its walls. I've been to more than a few of these with family, but never realized how hard and narrow the beds are. That might come in handy for emergency CPR, but not to just lie on. And those paper thin hospital gowns didn't cover nearly enough of my skin. And it was very cold in there. Quickly I was becoming what we call at work, a very needy patient.

Staff from various departments came by to feed information from me into the handy computer. You're retired, right" the lady said more than asked. "No, I still work" "Oh, part time?" "No, full time". I began to feel I would never fit the mold she had about me in her mind, and was tempted to just give her the answers she wanted. But my leg hurt a lot, so I tried to cooperate so they could get on with checking it.

A doctor asked me several questions, and seemed somewhat impatient about my answers. He wouldn't let me explain hardly anything. but ordered x-rays, and an ultrasound, "Good," I thought, since it's after ten p.m, and I've already been here an hour and a half. "let's get on with this". The x-ray person trudged in, pushing, sometimes pulling her heavy equipment. As she aligned my leg for her shots, her overhead light gave out, so she just gave it her best guess, and went for it.

I am trying to understand why I keep hurting. Because I'd had a knee replacement on the other leg, when this one became a problem, I thought I needed another. Night kept marking time, but we weren't getting answers yet.. Another nurse came by. She asked if I needed anything, and I told her I'd like a drink of water. I had noticed a few other ER patients, and one little scrawny guy with a long white beard in a room across from me, they were doing a lot of tests on, but ER didn't seem to be exactly hopping. I asked a nurse why my tests were taking so long, and she said they were short staffed, and had to call someone off duty in to do some of them. Ordinarily, I wouldn't growl so, but it didn't take much to trigger it now. I wondered if their being short staffed was because of the economy crisis, or from the nursing shortage.

I was really cold, so when she arrived to do the ultrasound, I asked for some blankets, and she got them, Even took time to warm them. That was the first time I liked how I felt in ER. We still had to wait for the doctor to check the ultrasound results, but eventually he did, and they were o.k. He said my leg bones looked fine, and didn't think I would need another knee replacement for several years. Best compliments I've heard in a long, long time. About then the nurse brought the drink of water. I noticed she had taken time to put some ice in it. It was after eleven thirty. Maybe my son and I could soon go home.

The tests came out just fine. X-rays too. But I still didn't know why my leg kept hurting. The doctor ordered pain pills, and pointed out the usual disclaimers. Not driving or taking with alcohol, but said it was fine to take Ibuprofen or Advil with them, to keep down inflammation, Then he wished me well, and left.

By now it was after midnight. If I didn't get to the nearest potty soon, ER staff would think I had more problems than unidentified knee pain. Completely barefooted, I hurried down the hall, past other examining stalls, and noticed one of them was being guarded by not one, but two policemen. The sight of them, and the sounds that arose from whatever they stood guard over, spurred me along. I at least had pain meds now, and like Scarlet in "Gone With The Wind", would think more about what was wrong with my knee tomorrow.

The next morning I tried getting out of bed without favoring my knee, and noticed the pain had eased some. While I still worked on the nursing unit where the cats were, and began taking allergy pills, to get through twelve hour shifts around them, I had stopped taking daily doses of Motrin, choosing to hurt some, instead of having allergy fits.

In talking with daughter, Bev, at "Scratchin' The Surface", she pointed out that she takes antinflammatory meds every day, and that I should, to ward off the same problems. It made perfect sense, for it was after I'd left them off a while that the knee hurt much worse,, and when I dug in the deep,hard dirt to plant the rosebush, is when the pain sped up enough to interrupt my solo dance in the kitchen that night.

Then I thought further than that. Wasn't it because I planned to stop working, or at least scale it down some, that I got myself the lovely rose to plant. And don't I feel almost acres better, now that I've taken a two week break.

Not long from now I will celebrate a milestone of living many years, a big number of which have been more than kind. While I was in ER a caring person warmed blankets for me, and another took time to bring me a drink. Their doing those thoughtful things made my hours there much better.

The culture I grew up in festered the idea that it wasn't alright to take care of yourself, that you should regard others more than you. It was considered almost holy to not put your own needs first. The idea of martyrdom may possibly be an offshoot from that kind of thinking.

The nurse who had taken time to bring me cold water had lingered a moment, then reached for a handful of Ace bandages, and applied one to my knee, then stuck the others in my open purse. I got the feeling it was her way of giving me a needed encouraging touch. I had thanked her, and was thinking:"Tomorrow I'll deal with this more."

I do have plans for the days that follow. I will not work myself as I've done for years. I may even look for something less hard to do than nursing. My health insurance offers almost free programs called the Silver Sneakers at a local health and rec center. All I need is some pretty sweats, and a swim suit big enough to properly cover my old wrinkles, and I guess some kind of shoes for when in the shower there. I may even get one of those cute little sunvisor caps. Whoop-de-do! Hear me roar! Some may need to look twice at me, to recognize all these changes. I can't do much about those cold hard examining beds in the ER, but I can treat me much softer than I have.