Along for the ride:

Friday, May 1, 2009

Positive Progress with a Plot Twist

I am pleased to report some positive progress. Someone called me on behalf of a lady who, just yesterday, was in ICU and looked so sick and miserable that I stayed just long enough to leave my card and wish her well. She had someone call today to see if I was coming back, and if so could I bring fruit or cookies or something so that she could eat when she was hungry. I love feeding people and was thrilled she was improving.
She had been moved to the Surgical Recovery Floor, which is where many of the accidental French patients are, so I took a big load of fruit and cookies, as well as a baguette and some cheese and some homemade vegetable soup for my special lady. I did ask the Doctor who was allowed to eat what and got the go-ahead for my new best friend to nibble at will. The Doctor took the tube out of her lung and told her she must get up and around, despite the pain from her broken ribs. Her husband is in Monterey, having been released from hospital today. He had a broken collar bone and is going to stay quiet for a day before facing the drive to reunite with his wife.
The lady with the missing arm was still their. She and her husband are confirmed on a flight out tomorrow. Their suitcase did turn up but their passports are missing or destroyed. They will get a special emergency pass to fly tomorrow. They are also looking better.

And so to the plot twist...

Once upon a time, in a Hypothetical Land, I was tricked and shafted by a sleazy businessman. I hired a lawyer (French, so my husband could understand what was going on), and he won our case and we were satisfied. So much so, that he was an invitee at our dinner party a while later and met husband's brother who had fractured his wrist when visiting our work-shop. Said brother-in-law (ironic term as you will see) was not only uninvited but I had specifically told him not to come.
Six months later, after aforementioned freeloading brother-in-law had been living with us, all expenses paid, we were served with a lawsuit. Our lawyer was now his lawyer and asking for a huge settlement.

The rest of the tale will come out another day. Suffice to say that when all my French crash-victim buddies showed me who had signed them up for the "Ambulance-Chasers' wet dream lawsuit" The name rang a big old bell!

I told them honestly, "I don't believe that man will ever go to heaven but he's the best of the bunch at what he does and he will get you the best possible settlement" (On a contingency basis, of course).

Call him Monsieur Shark

4 comments:

  1. You've done it again ; a piece of writing one cannot stop reading. Only one thing comes to mind concerning Mr. Shark, which is an old joke you may have heard before, but just in case :

    Did you know there is a movement afoot to start using lawyers instead of rats in laboratory experiments ?

    No, why ?

    Well, there are three good reasons :

    1) First, because there are far more lawyers than rats out there.

    2)Second, it will appease the anti-vivisectionists, they won't object.

    3)And last, because you can get lawyers to do things that rats would never dream of doing.
    --------------------------

    All kidding aside, it sounds like you are doing some wonderful things for the accident victims... an angel in disguise...

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  2. Owen, A very apt joke. I hadn't heard it. Thank you. I was a little concerned that I might get sued, so I was carefully hypothetical. He's really that bad/good.
    I do not in any way resemble an angel. Solid feet of clay, that's me. Anyone can buy chap stick and face cream in a hospital gift store. Better than flowers. My biggest problem is that with all my great skills (?) I am never sure which is the ground/first/exit floor. It's the English thing that first floor is upstairs, so I walk past number one on my way down the stairwell and visit a lot of basements. This particular hospital has the exit level as level B, so I assume I have made my usual mistake and go back up a flight, only to find myself confused and on the second floor. I was escorted out by two different, laughing, doctors yesterday, or I might still be there, bobbing between the floors.

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  3. Most of the hospitals I've ever visited are like mazes. *lol* Don't feel too silly.

    The hungry patient must have been in heaven with all that good food!! Sorry to disagree, but you are an angel!

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  4. I concur..Dear Angel. Oh my....this is great...your writing is wonderful, compelling and oh so humorous...bobbing between floors is a great visual..I am lol because I can relate.
    It is cruel and unusual punishment those Machiaveallian Mazes drafted by those Machiaveallian architects/engineers.

    My father had 92 hospitalizations over a ten year period and he was in 11 different hospitals so I know, all too well, this disturbing occurrence....no rhyme or reason to any of it. main/first/ground/basement/lower level and upper level exits/parking exits. Once I got the lay of the land so to speak, and I recognized folks with that familiar dazed and confused look in their eyes, I would immediately come to their rescue. Ms. GPS, if you will..so it's not just an English thing (smile)

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