Bittersweet Trip, Wild Weekend & A Special Book!

This certainly was a wild weekend! It started with a bittersweet trip to Troy. I say bittersweet because TB and I went up to collect Billy's things from storage. He won't be going back to RPI this year and maybe not at all. So as we emptied out the little storage room, I felt very sad about it. Billy had been offered a NJ Stars scholarship when he graduated high school--6th in his class--but he'd turned up his nose about going to any school in this state. RPI had given him a laptop and a $25,000/year scholarship--will the money be there if his grades are good enough for him to get back in? It's a real shame...but you can't tell kids anything. They know everythng and I guess the best way to learn is through experience. So now he's had to take out a lone to go to BCC, which is where Heidi is going.

On the other hand, the trip was sweet because TB and I decided it would be just us two and that we'd have dinner and spend time with my dear friends Jim and Dawn. We had a wonderful time! It was great to see my friends and spend some quality time with other adults!

Oh, and about the special book: It arrived today. It's called Room For Two and was written by Abel Keough. I started reading his blog, A Young Widower's Tale, when we both had diaries on Diary-X. I'm very happy for him. He lost his first wife and daughter very tragically but is now happily married and has three children with "Marathon Girl". I've been following his progress as he's written the story of his loss, meeting Marathon Girl and his new life with her. I wish all good things for them!

Traffic going and coming was nasty--summer travel, I guess, and when we got home on Sunday we were both tired and napped. After we got up, things went a bit wild. Linda had fallen at work at Friday but hadn't filed an accident report. People around her saw what happened, which is a good thing because her knee swelled and began to bother her. She finally decided to go to the emergency room last night.

Meanwhile, Little T has been rubbing one of his eyes the last couple of days. The teacher made note of it but for whatever reason Linda didn't take him to the doctor. I thought she should have, but what do I know? I only raised 3 kids. So Kennan had T for the weekend and had already picked him up when we left for NY.

After I got up, Linda told me Kennan had called and that T had some kind of bite on his face. What kind of bite? I asked and she didn't know. Neither did Kennan--apparently his mother called him at work to tell him. Kennan called again and from what I gathered, he was thinking T might have to go to the doctor, maybe we'd need to take him. I wondered, why wait? If it's a worrisome bite, go to the ER. But again Linda said and did nothing. The third time Kennan called was to tell her that T was asleep and that he, Kennan, had cut his finger and could see the bone. Go to the emergency room? Nah, he'd super glue it.

At that point, I had to leave the room.

After dinner, Linda went to the emergency room for her knee. TB took an Ambien to help him sleep and I sat down to finish my book The Great Deluge. The girls were in the dining room watching "Ghost Hunters" in the dark. Heidi came into the dining room for something and as she returned to the family room, she fell down the two steps and started screaming in pain.

By the time Kristin and I got to her, the ankle was already ballooning, two toes were bruised looking and her foot was taking on a strange shape. I was afraid it was broken. TB said he couldn't drive and I wasn't sure Heidi ought to be putting weight on that foot so I called 911. The police and then two paramedics arrived.

The paramedics told me a ride in the ambulance would bounce Heidi all around and the nearest hospital was so packed, people were waiting outside. This would have been the hospital Linda went to. So I asked the medics to splint Heidi's foot and ankle and help us get her into the van and they did. They suggested we go to South Ocean County Hospital, a good 45 minutes away.

Good old Southern New Jersey.

So I drove there, with Heidi stretched out and buckled into both middle seats. Billy came along to help drive and get Heidi into the ER. Kristin came for emotional support. I was really relieved to have Billy there. He went and got a wheelchair and then parked the car for us while the girls and I went into the ER to check in. It's not a gigantic hospital and it's far away but I really liked the people there. We arrived around 11:15 p.m. and we were out by 1 a.m. At that point, I was really tired and Billy drove back home.

It's always something around here.

Today, I took Heidi to our podiatrist. The folks at the hospital thought she might have had a fracture in her foot but the doctor said no, it was probably just the way her bone is. She does, however, have a very nasty sprain and has to keep weight off her foot for at least two weeks. She's got a special shoe, an Ace bandage and some crutches she is struggling with.

Meanwhile, Linda put Tomas on the bus for school and then thought better of it, went and picked him up and took him to the ER. She sat there until noon and then came home without ever being seen. She called the doctor and got an appointment. Now, why didn't she call the doctor in the first place? Who knows! It is very frustrating for TB and me because we felt like he'd been to the doctor and, of course, we have no say in it. She's still at the doctor and hopefully whatever is going on with Little T is no big deal.