Places You Can Knit and Things You Can See

You can knit in the ER after you take John back for the second time in a week. On Thursday he couldn't stand up and had to crawl from the kitchen to the sofa. I was afraid it was another disc in his lumbar region acting up or maybe a kidney stone, but off we went to the ER after the trauma of getting him into his truck.

You can also knit in his truck with your Hitchhiker artfully draped over the steering wheel. After sitting in the ER for several hours and being told that they still needed an ultrasound and CT scan to have a better idea of what was going on, I thought that sitting in the truck might be a better place to wait. That was okay for a few hours, but then it got cold and my fingers got stiff, so I headed back to the ER to see what was happening.

By then the doctors had decided that it was not a lumbar disc issue nor a kidney stone, but a kidney infection. They gave John an injection for pain and wanted to keep him overnight to infuse IV antibiotics. That was about the best diagnosis we could have hoped for (no surgery or waiting for a kidney stone to pass). I headed home and got a good night's sleep.

I picked John up on Friday and I'm pleased to say that he can stand upright and walk almost normally. He's got antibiotics and pain meds. to take at home. This worked out fairly well; he was supposed to go into work on Thursday to sign some retirement forms and hand in his laptop and badge, but that didn't happen. He felt well enough for us to come down to MD yesterday and he is doing all the official wrapping up for retirement this morning. I'm packing boxes and we'll be getting ready to load some furniture. After this one, I count just two more trips!

While sitting in the hospital I paged through lots of magazines. I saw this in an issue of Real Simple, but it struck me as something I might want to remember.

It feels like I'm doing lots of things slowly because there are LOTS of things going on, but I'm not standing still and will have to remind myself of this periodically.

Another thing that I saw while waiting was a deaf couple arguing. A man and woman came into the ER clearly agitated. Their frustration grew when it seemed that nobody could understand them, and the staff called for someone who could sign. I felt terrible for them, but couldn't offer any assistance. While they waited, they started to argue with each other. The man was signing furiously with big gestures, punctuated by clapping, hitting his fist into his palm, and stamping his feet. The woman seemed a little less upset, but it was still obvious that they were in the middle of a fight. Someone finally arrived that could sign and helped them. I had never thought about it and I didn't want to stare or intrude, but I was oddly fascinated to see how much could be communicated without any words. I'm hoping that things were resolved as well for them as they were for John.

I hope your weekend was a little less eventful and didn't include any health issues, knitting in a truck in a cold parking lot, or awful arguments. I'm ready for a stretch of uneventful days, and I'll even take boring!