Broken leg, hospital, and John Edwards

A bit of a weird day. Thursday my wife slipped on some ice, fell, and broke her left leg just above the ankle. She managed to break both bones. By the time we got home from the emergency room it was late and by the time she got situated in bed it was even later. Those people who talk about how efficient our medical system is and then try to scare people with what they call "socialized medicine," and how bad it might be, should perhaps visit an ER some evening. The staff were nice, friendly, and helpful, but efficient isn't the word I would use to describe our experience. I understand the concept of triage, but for someone to sit with a broken leg for three hours before getting an x-ray doesn't seem right. After the last round of x-rays, and while the Dr. was putting on the cast, the head Doctor came twice to check on Beth, and both times he apologized for the lengthy wait. I guess it made him feel better but it didn't do much for me.

I had promised to help at Edwards campaign appearance Saturday afternoon in Washington, so Dirk helped out, Beth's mother came down, and I took off for Washington. The job I was assigned was to get people who were attending to sign in so the Edwards people had an idea how many folks came. The Washington library meeting room can maybe hold 75 people comfortably at most. They crammed a lot of people inside - I'm sure the fire marshal would have been unhappy, if Washington has such a thing. By time they were done over 300 people had signed which was a lot more than they were expecting. I can't say how the speech went, or how Edwards answered questions because I didn't hear any of it. I stayed downstairs and talked to people who didn't want to stand on the stairway to try and hear some of what he had to say. As people came out I was to help ask people if they were willing to sign up to caucus for Edwards. Quite a few signed, or said they already had. Most of the people were positive and enthusiastic about what they heard.

One of the interesting things was the number of people present from other states. I talked with folks from North Carolina, Colorado, Illinois and Kansas. Most had grown up in Iowa and were visiting relatives over Christmas. There were even some people from Australia taking in all the activity. Most made it clear they were just taking the opportunity to see a candidate while they were in the area.