Another day, another emergency

Today I had just returned from yoga class and was pondering what to do with a few rare uncommitted hours ,when the phone rang. It was my dad, and he was telling me, or trying not to tell me because he was afraid it would be too much for me to handle, that he had some very bad pain in his left hand and needed to go to the emergency room.
The last time we went for my mom, it took 9 1/2 hours to get out of there, for them to discover what it might have taken only an hour or so to find out, if they had tended to her earlier, that she had a bladder infection and needed antibiotics. Today, my dad was lucky. We had been there less than an hour maybe even less than half an hour when we were called inside for triage and sent straight back into the bowels of the emergency room, where we were seen by a doctor, someone I knew from synagogue, in less than an hour again. Neither the doctors nor the nurses disappeared for long periods of time. It was busy, but not as a frantically so as last time we were there. We got to park right in front of the hospital, and things moved along. However, no one really could say why my dad had pain, except to rule out the thing we feared most: another stroke.
Despite my dad's very high blood pressure, it didn't seem to have anything to do with his heart. He hadn't broken his hand or even sprained something. So the doctor's best guess is that it might be something neurological. Good guess for someone as neurologically complicated as my dad, with a history of neuropathy in his legs and back. So we have to go back to the doctor tomorrow and she will probably refer us to the neurological guys. Something for another day.
On the way home, we stopped at Sassoon Chicken, and delighted with the prospect of not having to stay at the hospital anymore today, consumed a big plate of shish kabob, hummous, and an Armenian potato salad with green onions and lemon juice, topped off by fluffy basmati rice and hot pita bread. I had chicken shwarma with the same sides. Yummy.