Seven hours in Urgence

All during the weekend my esophagus had been having temper tantrums.

This is not new. Over the years, I've had periodic attacks, but they last a short time. This one was different. It went on and on and on and on and . . .

The pain can be described as anything from a belt pulled too tight across my chest to someone stomping on my chest in jackboots.

The first ones which I had decades ago,  I thought were heart attacks. I scared the people around me. Now I know they are not, but I still want to be checked.

I knew this wasn't one. I'd had a similar attack Mar. 26 and my heart was shown to be normal. The test results from the hospital said so and their report was verified by my internist the day before.

I knew I needed an endoscopy.

J as always was support and drove me Hôpital Universitaire de Genéve. HUG, which is a wonderful name for a hospital only in French it is pronounced WHOg.

She let me off at Urgence-A&E if you're a Brit-ER if you're American. I watched a TV show here in Switzerland for a couple of years called Urgence before I realised it was the acclaimed American series ER.

We knew it would be slow so we were prepared with tons of reading material.

Met some interesting people.

While waiting for the check in there was a Romanian who had lived in Switzerland for 40 years, had a house in Spain, and thought Mozart was the best composer ever, citing that his original compositions had no corrections. His first draft was his best.

The nurses: Ms. Perky who was Portuguese-Swiss but lived in France (normal for Geneva), Antonio who had a smile for everyone, Virginie who brought me a weird blood pressure cuff that didn't deflate. It was replaced quickly.

The day dragged on as we read. J moved the car, went for lunch and her afternoon coffee.

She also acts as a translator either for me or for those that don't understand my accent. About the only word I didn't understand this time was that for stools, selles. I'd flipped it into the English cell, and wondered about prisons where I would gladly incarcerate my esophagus.

My two doctors were like Mutt and Jeff, cartoon characters from my childhood in build, but were George Clooney cute.

The endoscopy wasn't possible-it will come later. However I got two diagnoses: inflammation and infection.

Just when I was saying I would trade my book for her read magazines, they released me.

Hope the endoscopy leads to a way of getting rid of these attacks.

My housemate did a duelling blog. She thinks it was nine hours we were there. I would trust her numbers more than mine.