Well, I have to tell you about my experience that included my first ambulance ride as a patient.

I recently suffered from a case of bronchitis. It started off with a runny nose when I woke up one morning. By that afternoon it had advanced to a tickle in my chest and a cough.

Since I turned 65, I have found myself very susceptible to getting bronchitis or pneumonia whenever I get a cold.

Knowing that, my wife, Diane, takes me to the doctor as soon as I feel those symptoms.

This time I was given a Z-pack, which had an immediate positive effect on the bronchitis. After 10 days of excessive coughing, I went to bed feeling like I was finally going to get a good night’s sleep.

When I woke up two hours later at 12:30 a.m., my abdomen was full of muscle cramps. And the pain was INTENSE, the worst I’ve ever experienced. I spent about 10 minutes rubbing them. I had to wake up Diane. The pain continued.

“You’d better call an ambulance,” I said.

Diane called 911 and the ambulance was there in six minutes. Two paramedics, one female and the other a male, were in our bedroom and asking questions about my condition.

Diane told him about the excessive coughing I had done that week. She also asked him if there was something he could give me to ease the pain. The muscles in my abdomen were in spasms, and Diane said, “We thought an alien was going to pop out, as in that old movie.”

Everyone chuckled and even I managed a smile.

“But, seriously,” Diane said, “Can you give him something to ease those spasms? His muscles are hard as a rock.”

They helped me get on a gurney. They rolled me outside and put me in the back of an older ambulance. The female paramedic took my temperature and blood pressure and hooked up an IV port to my arm.

The other paramedic saw I was settling down and he went out the back door. When he attempted to close the rear door, it wouldn’t shut. He slammed it a few times, but the mechanism wouldn’t catch. I was asked if we had a preference in hospitals. I told him we were new to the area and had not yet had time to research hospitals in the Las Vegas area,

The paramedic suggested Dignity Health-St. Marten on Warm Springs Road, which is less than two miles from home.

We arrived at the hospital emergency room and I was pleased with how friendly the entire staff was. I was taken to another room by a young man who took a cat-scan of my abdomen. Meanwhile, I did get an injection of morphine to ease my pain. I went to sleep, and woke up about three hours later and found myself in a hospital room.

A nurse stopped in to see if she could do anything for me. She told me that my wife had given all of my information to them and I was all checked in.

“The doctor should be coming in after he reviews your cat-scan,” she said.

It was two hours later when two doctors came in. Nurses kept coming in and taking samples of my blood.

“Mr. Cruikshank, it appears you have some internal bleeding occurring in your abdomen,” one of the doctors said.

They showed Diane and me a copy of the affected area from the cat-scan. The right inner wall was lined with a thick hematoma. That area later turned black on the surface skin.

They said they would monitor my blood count which seemed to be holding steady at 11.5. I told them that normally it was in the 14 range.

However, it was only 4.4 when I had a previous hematoma several years ago. I swallowed a small camera in a large pill at the Mayo Clinic. The source of that blood loss was never determined. I did have esophagitis at that time.

The Las Vegas doctors speculated that I had ruptured a blood vessel during a coughing spell while I had bronchitis. It had closed off somehow.

The Mayo doctor who examined me the week after this incident said that it appeared that platelets moved into the ruptured blood vessel and closed up the rupture.

“You must have some amazing blood platelets,” the Mayo doctor said.

-------

Most of the rest of my columns this year will be some aspect of Fountain Hills history as part of The Times’ participation in the Town’s 30-50 celebration.

I may be living in Las Vegas now but my heart is still in Fountain Hills. On Jan. 19, 1970, I was brought to Fountain Hills for the first time. On Jan. 19, 2020, some 50 years later, I toasted to the town I’m so proud of.