My Knight in Shining...Uber
SPRINGFIELD, Mo.—Friday, Jan 29, 5:00 a.m.
“Don’t worry, I don’t have COVID, just some post surgery complications,” I told the Uber driver as I hobbled across my yard at midnight. I knew he would have seen that my destination was the hospital Emergency Department. I laid down in the back seat, writhing in pain.
“Aw, that wouldn’t scare me anyhow,” he said cheerily, then proceeded to take off...at a snail’s pace.
Hidden inside my right vest pocket was a plastic trash bag, just in case; my stomach had already had a violent night.
The driver was younger, mid-20s or so, bearded. A jolly fellow, it seemed. Turns out it had been a slow night for him: no drunks, no drama. And the fact that I was horizontal, crouched in fetal position didn’t seem to phase him one bit.
I learned all about his family, his decision to move to Springfield and drive for Uber, and his past career in “something kind of related to the health field.” Normally, the nosy journalist in me would follow up on such vague statements, but I could barely reply, “Mm-hmm” or “Uh-huh.”
I’m pretty sure I came close to asking him if he could “step on it a little." What was the speed limit on National Avenue, anyway?
I should disclose: when I’m driving, I try my hardest to respect the speed limit at all times, but I also am not known for driving slow. Five years driving in the Arab World, where traffic cops don’t exist, unfortunately got in my bloodstream and never left.
Oh—and I should mention I only live a stone’s throw away from the hospital, a five minute’s drive at best—but it felt like we were on a guided sightseeing tour at the pace we were going.
Just when I began to wonder if we were lost, he launched into a story about how he drove a woman in labor to the same ER recently, which boosted my confidence that we would arrive, eventually.
Perhaps I spoke too soon last month when I described my surgery as “textbook.” Or maybe it’s just par for the course, given that all surgeries come with risk, some serious.
Whatever the case, I find myself back in a hospital during a pandemic for the second time in as many months--as a patient, not as a journalist.
A blood pressure cuff is doing its python act on my right arm and a bulky NG tube, forced through my nose down my esophagus is vacuuming my stomach floor. And a very kind Springfield Uber driver somewhere out there is probably telling his customers about the woman he “raced” to the ER Thursday night!
Last week at work, my clothes felt tight. And not just a post-holiday-kind-of-tight: very weird fitting in the stomach area, even after I wore my favorite stretchy velour pants, designed for all-you-can-eat buffets. My stomach area was protruding badly, and it felt hard to the touch. I thought I was just still swollen from the hysterectomy.
After work, I started cramping. By 10:00 p.m., the abdominal pain had rendered me a coiled-up, moaning mama. I called and woke up my medical parents to see if this was normal five weeks after a hysterectomy.
“Maybe I can just wait it out through the night and go to urgent care in the morning?” I asked. I was really hoping to avoid an ER bill.
Then the vomiting began.
“Get in an Uber,” Dad said. “Don’t delay.”
I kissed my teenage daughter goodbye and told her not to throw any house parties while I was away. I hobbled out the front door and across my yard to get in the Uber car.
“I’ll get you there,” the driver had pledged when I was first climbing in. He’d never promised to get me there at the speed of stallions or with the skills of an Indy 500 star; he had promised to get me safely to the people who could make me feel better.
And on that promise, he delivered. For that, and for the pinch of humor on an otherwise dismal night, he will have my everliving gratitude.
(To be continued)