(Day 4) Walter and I

Yesterday I almost bled out. Today, it happened again. Did I die? No, but maybe I was close. This time though, instead of eventually running dry, I was left with one little vein that had just detached itself and hung there, seeping blood continuously. I decided it was time to head to the hospital as I did eventually need to get inside a pressure-filled airplane for the ride home later. Happy Birthday Janelle, I’m off to the hospital and the spa appointments are on hold.

Arriving in the lobby, I asked the doorman to summon me a taxi to take me to the hospital. Instead he summoned the house car, a black Mercedes S-Class driven by my new buddy, Walter. I sunk into the plush leather seats in the black as Walter soothed my worries with his kind words all the way to the emergency room.

The emergency room had one old couple in it and some chatty nurse-types in the check-in window. The whole process of hospital care in America was very different than I’m used to in Canada – zero privacy, brash personalities, and treatment by the Doctors’ Ph.D. students’ student assistant. Two full levels from a real doctor. The student guy looked like your regular, all-American football player in a doctors coat. He kept saying, “Mmmmmkay” after every answer I gave to his questions and he did not listen to my answers at all. And then he’d smile this really-toothy grin. I could hear him when he reported to his supervisor about me – he got so many things wrong. She then checked me out and had to school him on what he should have noticed. She then silver-nitrated the hell out of my nose, burning the skin around my nostril hole until it was black.



Then, after the doctor had eaten lunch and taken his afternoon nap, he came by to check it out and tell me that Vegas is ridiculously dry and I should lube up my nose with Vaseline next time. Then he sent me on my merry way to the cashier. $1,500 USD later, I’m summoning Walter again for my pick-up.

I arrived back at the hotel to find a disgruntled little Janelle packing up my crap. We checked out and then headed over to the Monte Carlo from exotic Subway sandwiches. After that was the spa appointments which were previously scheduled 20 minutes after the start my nosebleeds. The Chinese detoxifying foot spa treatment was glorious.





Three cheers for non-pedicure foot treatments! Ugh. Janelle and I both fell asleep.

After the spa came dinner at Wolfgang Puck Pizzeria & Cucina – both Janelle and I weren’t so impressed. We were just both feeling kind of nauseous at that point and the food was mediocre at best.


I ate a small bush.


If you know Janelle, the look says it all.



We spent our last minutes in Vegas at Aria, gambling. It was probably good that we waited until the last to do our gambling because Janelle got swept up into it so quickly. She won though, so I guess that’s when it’s good to be into gambling. I think I came away completely even. After trickling the time by, we headed home to the Mandarin to join Walter in the car one more time, for our final journey to the airport. I’m going to miss being chauffeured around.




We ate dinner number two at this little café completely staffed by little Spanish ladies wearing short striped dresses and white orthopedic runners.

And with that, we made it back to Bellingham (annoying partying cougar ladies in tow once again.) The guy at the border let me over with twice my exemption limit. And free health care abounds. I love Canada.