So, my wife and I head out to San Francisco with another couple so the two wives can run the Bay to Breakers race while the husbands gawk at the scenery and drink. It was supposed to be a stress free weekend getaway.
We husbands go back to the pre-arranged meeting place at the hotel lobby once the race is nearing completion. The wives are supposed to meet each other at the finish line and then cab back to the hotel for showers. Then, we all should check out of the hotel and have fun the rest of the day watching nudists play frisbee in public and whatnot before hopping the train back to Sacramento.
I then got a call from a cop saying my friend’s wife cannot find my wife. Everyone has been looking everywhere. The cops called the ambulance company and confirmed a woman of my wife’s name and age was taken by ambulance to UCSF Hospital. Oh, crap.
I call UCSF hospital, and she’s not registered there. However, she may be admitted, but just not in the registry yet.
I call the ambulance company and they say they have no such record of her, but sometimes during big events, like Bay to Breakers, the ambulance companies stop entering people’s names because they don’t intend to bill the patient for the service; the ambulance company is being paid on contract by the city for the event.
I call the cop back and tell him neither the ambulance company nor UCSF has a record of her, but that doesn not necessarily mean it didn’t happen as the cop said. He says the ambulance company CONFIRMED the transport but could not say anything about her medical condition due to privacy laws.
We decide I must act on the safest information available and that would be the word of the police officer who confirmed the information. We hurredly pack up the hotel rooms and finally manage to get a cab to the Bay to Breakers finish line to pick up the other wife, in horrendous traffic.
I asked the other wife about the confirmed information by the cop. She says the only information she gave the cop was my wife’s full name and her age. The cop confirmed the ambulance transport based only upon that information.
We head for the hospital, but the cab cannot get through the blocked-off race route. The cabbie drops me off about 10 blocks from the hospital. I leave the other couple in the cab and tell them to go back to the hotel. I run up this huge hill to the UCSF E/R on foot. In the meantime, an hour or so has passed since we first got word of this whole thing.
UCSF says there is no patient there by that name and perhaps they told me the wrong hospital. He gives me the name of every other ER in town and I start calling around in a panic. I’m thinking my wife has not called me or instructed anyone else to call me, so perhaps she is incapable of making such a request due to her medical condition. If it was just a sprained ankle or anything other than some serious medical issue, I would have heard from her by now.
I call every hospital in town and no luck. However, hospital staff keeps telling me that just because she’s not in the registry does not necessarily mean she is not in the E/R due to delays in entering patient information into the registry, especially if the hospital is busy during a big event like Bay to Breakers.
So, as far as I can tell, my wife was transported from the Bay to Breakers race to some unkown hospital in San Francisco, and nobody can tell me where or how she is. She could be in serious medical trouble because she has neither called me nor insturcted anyone else to call me.
At this point, I feel completely helpless. By this time, about 2 hours have passed since we first heard about this whole thing from the cop. Then, I get a call on my cell phone.
It’s my wife calling from the hotel lobby. She is fine. She couldn’t find her friends at the finish line, so she hopped on Muni (light rail) and headed back to the hotel. She was stuck on Muni for about an hour an a half. She expected to find us all at the hotel waiting for her. She had no idea what we had all been going through while she was stuck on Muni. Relief.
By this time, the race is over and people are leaving the area. All the busses and trains are full. There are no cabs to be found. Looks like I’m stuck walking from Breakers to Bay since the hotel is near the Embarcadero. I walk about a mile or two from UCSF back toward the Embarcadero.
My wife then manages to find a cab. She heads out to my location and picks me up. It’s now about 3 hours after we first got word from the cop.
She said she was in the hotel lobby and called me, but there was no answer. She then called our friends who told her I was at UCSF E/R looking for her, and I was scouring all the hospitals in town thinking she was seriously injured. She said she started crying in the hotel lobby and the people at the desk were asking if she was ok. She really didn’t think to borrow anyone’s cell phone on Muni or to get off Muni and find a phone to call me.
Anyway, it all ended well, but so much for the stress free weekend. That was three hours of pure hell.
When “normal” people are unexpectedly delayed and out of touch for a couple of hours, it tyically causes people some delays and frustrations. However, it seems typical of my wife that when she is delayed and out of touch for a couple hours, it results in me rushing to hospitals in a panic thinking she’s possibly near death based upon false information from the police.
We’ve concluded that she’s just cursed that way.
