Sick lady at casino. Should I be concerned?

[ladyauthor2b]

Yesterday I went to Shreveport/Bosier City for a gambling excursion with my hubby and daughter and her best friend. At one point, he decided to take a shuttle to another casino on his own, since he had a free voucher for $20 to play on the slots. I stayed inside Boomtown casino, loosing my shirt. So I decided to take a break and wait for his return. I sat outside watching the people come and go, the valet people giving out the vouchers to all the beautiful people, gathering keys and wizzing their fancy cars to park. The breeze fluttered in my hair as I sat on that bench. It was a warm afternoon under a cloudy sky, but it felt good. Another lady sat there too, under that huge entrance. We talked about our wins/losses, sharing our experience in the casino. She had lost and was out of money, three hours before our bus would return to Temple.  I could greatly sympathise. The machines didn't seem to be giving today.

After about twenty minutes, a well dressed woman came outside escorting an older lady, in her late sixties. She sat down in between us, with a glass of water sat down at her feet, and the well dressed woman took off to go inside, leaving the older one alone.  This lady didn't say too much and sort of hunched over staring at her feet. I didn't think much of it. Another ten minutes went by and then she spoke, "Ohhhhh.... ahhh. I'm going to throw up."

"What?" the lady on the other side asked, her head turning to look the older woman over.

"I don't feel good. I'm going to throw up. Right here."

The other lady jumped up and ran back into the casino, wanting no part of what was going to happen. That left me to deal with the situation.  I certainly didn't want this woman to throw up in front of me at my feet. Lucky for us, there was a tall cylinder trashcan right beside the door, about two feet away from us, and I pointed at it.

"There's a trash can there. You can use that," I said and helped this pour soul onto both feet. And she clutched the sides of the trashcan, then pushed her head deep inside the container. Out it came. She hurled and spat, for about a good five minutes and I just patted her back, watching the beautiful people come and go. No one really paid any attention to us.  If she had thrown up at my feet, would any had helped?

"Watch my purse," the lady asked at one point. It had sat on the bench next to her and so I scooted it closer to the end, where she could reach it if she wanted to do so. 

"Do you want me to go inside and bring you a wet paper towel," I asked, as she sort of lifted her head up, with strings of spit saliva flowing into the trashcan; not a pretty site, but she shook her head no and wiped her mouth anyway, "Did you have too much to drink inside? Do you feel better? Will you be alright?"

She shook her head yes, but then lowered her head again, clinging to the trashcan. About that time, the shuttle had returned from the other casino and my husband stepped out.  I wanted to go meet him. I patted the lady on the back.

"I must run. I hope you'll feel better." I said and walked away, to which she nodded again, clinging to that trashcan. And then I heard her mutter, "Flu."

Ok, what would you think? Was she just citing all the recent events occurring about the flu and was comparing feeling drunk to that? Or did she come to that casino already feeling sick, but wanting to gamble so bad that she didn't care?  I'm hoping that she just felt bad from drinking. Of course I went to the bathroom to wash my hands. All of my human compassion could not leave her there to just throw up alone. I had to remedy the situation. I work at a hospital. I know that frequent hand washings help alleviate the spread of things and I only had held her arms and patted her back.

Still, as I thought about it all evening, I couldn't help but run it over and over in my mind. Perhaps it was dumb of my family to take an excursion where there's such a fear about the Swine flu going on, but the news are now back paddling about how bad it really is, that so far, the severity may be less.  That's good news, indeed. Yet,  I took a chance to go to a very public place, riding a very public tour bus to get there. Guess if I'm meant to get it, it will happen.  I'm praying that I don't; hoping that I didn't catch some bug/flu by chance, just because I helped out this woman.

Opinions?

 

[MSugarKane]

May. 3, 2009 at 4:17 PM

Handwashing is the number one suggestion to not getting the flu.  The poor lady was probably so embarrased and too sick to care.   You did the right thing though helping her out like you did.