day planning

I had yesterday all figured out.

Replace the washing machine hoses, mow and groom the lawn, take a nap or two.

I woke up at 4 and could not sleep, so I got up for an hour or so and read and wrote. About 6 I was back in bed and in a deep sleep when Emily came into the room and woke me. She had a gut ache that had kept her awake way too much of the night.

She crawled in under the covers (that makes three in a queen bed now) and we talked. The pain was right behind her belly button and had been with her on and off all week.

She did not want to go to work if she could not do good work (at her school, all of the students works on Friday, and her job at the Portland Zoo is one she enjoys). She was in a quandary.

I suggested that she stay home. So she went back to bed. She woke about 8, googled her symptoms, then called the hot line for her hospital. The help desk called back in half an hour, listened and suggested that she come on in and to not eat first.

So I had to find St. Vincent’s hospital in Portland. Turns out it is not very far away. We had spent a long evening there 29 years ago this summer. We were on a bicycle tour (about 500 miles) and Linda had an accident and ended up in three hospitals, including St. Vincent's.

So about 9 we headed to the Emergency room.

My memory is that when you go to the emergency room, take a sleeping bag, a thick book and enough paper to write a novel, cause you may be there that long. I did not have enough to do.

So Emily checked herself in. I signed as “grandfather” and they took her into the innards (since she is 14 she went to the “children’s” emergency). We waited.

I texted family and rested, took a nap, wrote in my journal, read from an old magazine or two and rested more -- even took my shoes off. About noon, having been there for about 3 hours, Emily texted me: “Come Back.”

The volunteer ladies were wonderful, they got us a couple of passes and showed us Em’s room.

Em was waiting to go have a CT scan done. They had already drawn a bucket of blood and made some other tests. The tech said it would take 20 minutes to do the scan and another 20 minutes for other techs and the doc to evaluate the scan.

An hour and 40 minutes later they had done all of that.

The verdict was that she might have the beginning of an appendicitis or she might have a viral infection, and maybe both. Wait over the weekend and come back in if it hurts.

Emily’s mother is half a world away. Her aunt is back in SF, the nurse aunt was not available, but we did talk to the uncle who is an EMT. Those guys are trained to look for symptoms and in my view they do it pretty well.

So about 4 they released us.

Meanwhile Emily had been in touch with her mom in Thailand. (When my mother got sick I spent most of a week getting in touch with my sister in the middle of Africa).

We visited more with the aunts. If she should have to have surgery what would we do? How could we care for her?

Right now we do not need to worry too much on that one, except in general ways. So, how will she sleep tonight? I don’t know yet. I guess we have time.
I did manage to get the front lawn string trimmed and mowed, so outside, the house looks decent.