Any storm in a port
Thursday’s treatment was going pretty well. I’d dozed through most of it, three hours, but woke to a nurse saying they were taking all patients off the machines and into interior hallways because of the tornado warnings.
Tornado? I hadn’t noticed.
Once I was off the machine, Trish loaded my stuff onto the recliner with me and began rolling me through the hallways to the safe area. Curtis was rolled ahead of me, Trista, Arlene and Cathy behind me. Luckily, it was an abbreviated number dialyzing that evening.
Trish halted my recliner and turned it sideways. Oh, good. She parked me right in front of the doorway to the biohazard room. Hope the door doesn’t blow open.
Techs and nurses took vitals once we were relocated and told us we would be weathering the storm here until an “all clear” was issued. Then it would be decided whether to return us to treatment or end the sessions with the possibility of making up the lost time Saturday.
Sounded like a plan, but I had a little over an hour left and was not relishing the idea of a 51/2 hour treatment on Saturday. Gabe suggested I bring in a couple of my favorite movies to pass the time more quickly.
It was just over an hour before the all clear came. The decision was to send patients home.
We here in Iowa are a bit cavalier when it comes to tornado warnings but even as we’re poo pooing the need to seek shelter, we know we do so at our own risk. They are violent storms, truly destructive killers, that seem to come hell bent for leather from nowhere without any warning.
Well, using the hell bent term just sent me searching the Net to find its origins. You have to admit, it’s a strange juxtaposition of words but they do seem to get the urgency across. It seems to be attributable, at least in part, to Rudyard Kipling.
So, of course, that made me think of the pioneer days. What do you suppose they thought about that natural fury? It’s something to contemplate. Even less warning there with no weather forecasters or emergency sirens.
It also makes you contemplate the idea that for all the modern machinery, computers, etc., to save life, we can still be at the mercy of Mother Nature.
