So I started this on Sunday's post, I'm setting this to auto post (first time ever!) because a friend has suggested that I go overnight hunting with her before the season fully ends. However, I didn't want to leave y'all hanging until Wednesday. (And yes, Y'all is something I was saying due to a play I was in. I had not quite gotten it out of my system before living in TX. Now, I doubt I ever will :P)
We left our disgruntled hero waiting to see if a hospital visit was in order and our heroine trying not to laugh.
Without further ado, Part 2 in our fairy tail...
Out of habit, Leona dialed the
Xray department where her father in law worked during the day.
"X-ray department." A woman answered the phone absently.
"I'm sorry, I meant to call the main number. But maybe you can help. If my husband was just bit by mice does he have to be seen by a doctor?"
Leona just barely kept the laughter out of her voice.
"Um, I don't know. Let me ask someone." The nurse spoke slowly as if confused. Leona listened to the muffled voices, giving her husband covert looks under her eyelashes.
"Is it infected?" The female voice finally asked.
"I don't know. It just happened." Leona was a little exasperated. Really? How was she supposed to know?
"Okay. Well, he's probably okay. Why would he bite a mouse?" The disembodied voice asked.
Leona sat in stunned silence for a moment. "You think my husband bit the mouse." A bark of laughter burst out of her. "No," she finally said breathlessly. "He was bit twice by a mouse." There was no stopping the giggles now. She could imagine the gossip going around the hospital now.
"Oh, in that case, he needs to see a doctor soon," the nurse said so fast that it was apparent that would have been her
initial answer if she hadn't been thinking that it was the man biting the little rodent.
Leona hung up and took a deep breath to still the laughter.
"Okay, honey, we need to go. She said you have to see a doctor soon and your clinic doesn't open until Monday."
"Really? Now?" he was incredulous.
"You were bit by a rodent. You probably need to at least take antibiotics or something."
He starts shrugging into his coat when Leona stops him. "You're going to have to wait a minute because I have to change this shirt," she said emphatically.
She pulled the picture of the John Deere tractor out away from her chest with both hands and peered down on it. "There is no way on God's green earth that I am going to the hospital in a John Deere shirt to tell them my husband was bit by a mouse."
"I--" he started to say than changed his mind. "Okay. You know I only got bit because I was trying to put it outside instead of killing it."
"Yes, honey, I know," she said, her voice muffled through the shirt she was putting on. She knew he would figure out how hard it was not to be laughing if she kept saying 'honey' but it was hard. "You're my hero. It is really sweet that you were trying to help me not feel so bad. Really it is. I love you." She meant every word. It was probably the most romantic thing he'd done in ages. Worrying about her feelings over a mouse was above and beyond as far as she was concerned.
Twenty minutes later they pulled into the emergency room parking lot. Leona had stifled giggles off and on all the way to the hospital.
"Honey, you will probably have to explain it. I'm sorry. I won't be able to without cracking up too bad." She got out of the car and shut the door.
"I noticed. I'll take care of it," he said.
At the admitting window they went through the initial paperwork. When Nathan began describing the incident, a giggle escaped Leona. The woman in admitting lost it a little and grinned.
"Oh no, don't laugh," Leona said. "I won't be able to hold back." It didn't help. They were both laughing as the receptionist tried to finish asking the necessary questions. Nathan took it all in good
naturedly and even smiled a little himself.
The triage nurse was almost through when she realized he was bitten on both thumbs. When she asked how that happened, Nathan sighed. He knew it was going to be the end of her ability to not laugh. He was right.
When the nurse heard how he had ended up with both thumbs bitten, she smiled.
"You should get a cat," she said.
"We are," the couple responded in unison.
An ER nurse came and got him from the lobby and they went back to a corner room. When she heard the story her lips twitched. Leona was laughing outright by this point. The story was funnier every time. She kept having to assure her husband that she loved him and he was her hero for trying to save the mouse, but it was funny.
The nurse then told him we should get a cat. Nathan and Leona rolled their eyes. It was Nate who answered. "We are. It's on its way."
Leona studiously went back to the newspaper whe was reading in an attempt to distract herself.
Then the robust, good natured doctor arrived. "We're going to give you a tetnus shot and antibiotics. You should be fine. If you show any signs of infection or get a fever, come back or go see your doctor." He laughed as well at the story. "Get a cat," he said while leaving.
"We are," Nathan said yet again, setting off Leona's giggles.
A few minutes later the doctor came back to shut the door as she was giggling uncontrollably now. They'd forgotten to tell the doctor they had the mouse with them. It was in the plastic sack Nathan had carried in and promptly set somewhere because neither one of them had wanted to hold onto it.
He looked at the mouse than back at the couple with his eyebrows raise? "This is the mouse that bit you? This little thing? No wonder she is laughing," he said indicating her with the nod of his head.
"They told us we had to come in," Nathan said defensively, but with no real heat.
"Yes, yes. It's true. But," he seemed to change his mind and said instead. "The nurse will be back soon with your tetanus shot. Good night." Smiling hugely at us with his large straight teeth, he left the room closing the door behind him.
The nurse came in and gave him his shot and his antibiotics. Going over the signs to watch for again and handing him a prescription. She smiled at us, twinkling. "Be careful next time," she admonished.
"Oh, we will," Nathan promised her as Leona giggled again.
By the time they left the hospital it was two in the morning. He had been scheduled to work a twelve hour shift at five. He wasn't going to make it.
Leona had to work at seven so they went home and he called and left a message explaining about the shot that gave him side effects not appropriate for working with machinery--dizziness and nausea.
The next day, Nathan went back to work. How the men at work howled at him. When they could stop laughing they gave him a new nickname. "Mickey it is you. You were felled by a little mouse."
Leona's twitter friends were laughing as well. Some even suggested he might turn into a weremouse. She laughed out loud. As a former EMT Leona knew how to handle a lot of things. Could even help save a life if needed. But having her husband look so insulted at being bit by a tiny mouse all for love was too much.
The war on the mice is now very personal for both of them. Pregnant mice, young mice, have been spotted scurrying around the closests and across the floors.
"Laugh it up. Soon, I shall be the one laughing. The cat is coming," she said grimly to one especially openly rebellious mouse.
Yes, definitely one too many Disney movies.
The End. For now.
