Coming home from the war, via the Merced ER

After three days at McClatchy's Washington bureau and another nine visiting family and friends in Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin and Corpus Christi, I finally pointed the Elvismobile toward the 99 from L.A. yesterday morning.

An hour into the trip, my contacts were bugging me so I stopped at a rest area, took 'em out and replaced 'em with my glasses.

Within minutes my right eye had swelled shut, and the pain felt as if somebody were dragging sand grains across it. I literally held the eye open for the next four hours till I finally got home after nearly two months away.

My cat Lucky was glad to greet me (neighbor girl Boo took care of her), and I tried to suck it up and get through the pain with Ibu while I was unpacking.

Wrong idea.

So, tears streaming from one eye, I made it to the Merced Medical Center/Merced Community Campus/Emergency Department.

Right idea.

After I scribbled through the requisite paperwork, admissions clerk Sao Lee showed me to a seat. Less than five minutes later, I was called in by registered nurse Joann Wyatt, who did the preliminary diagnosis. Then Ivan Ventura, a physician's assistant, took over. He immediately dripped some eye drops into my eye which removed the pain, then walked me through what had happened:

An allergic reaction to new contact lens wetting/soaking solution I'd bought before I went overseas.

He prescribed some pills and eye drops while Nurse Wyatt injected me with some sorta healing potion. Since I didn't cry, she gave me a brown teddy bear with the ER's logo on it. Then Paula Bailey took over, helping me with prescription forms and last-minute details. Martha Ochoa took my insurance card at the payment desk.

It was all over in 20 minutes.

I walked out, immensely relieved, guided to a good eye doc in town (ironically, I spent the night last week in Corpus with my college roommate, Dr. Jack Dugan, of the Dugan Eye Institute in that town, but of course the timing was off).

And I walked off mightily impressed with the fast, caring and professional service shown by the staff there. They didn't know I was a newspaperman until the very end, when I asked for their names so I could put 'em on our Web site.

We all complain about bad service--and much of it is justified--but when we're greeted with top-notch service, we often tend to forget that the folks performing it also like to be appreciated.

So here's to the Mercy ER folks from Sunday afternoon. Thanks for helping me get well enough to get home and then to come back to work this morning.

I was gonna give that teddy bear to Boo, but now I just may keep it myself...

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ADD: In my Elvisian 'thankyuhthankyuhverrahmuch' entry a couple weeks ago in appreciation of all those who helped me cover the war in Iraq, I forgot an important man, and this blog entry reminded me to mention him:

My physician, Dr. Christian Gallery. Although I've only been going to him for a year, he's the best doc I've had since I was a kid in Kansas and Dr. Roberts used to make house calls. Besides routine stuff, Dr. Gallery went above and beyond to make sure I had a two-month supply of a couple of meds to last me through my deployment. And hey, Doc, you'll be glad to hear I lost 15 pounds over there. Mainly from moving around with troopers who could be my grandkids while in 119-degree heat and wearing 40 pounds of body armor. I call it the Iraq Extreme Diet--IED for short...