Hansford Herald - December 2001
“May you live in interesting
times” –well known saying (not necessarily of Chinese origin though)
Greetings and happy holidays to
one and all. Well, it has been an interesting year for us. We’ve had the usual
job changes. We moved last year, so that one’s out for a bit, but we managed,
unwittingly, to make it an exciting year nonetheless.
Below is a timeline detailing our
trips to the hospital and emergency room.
December 22nd – Brian
is awakened in the middle of the night by Benjamin, who wants a drink of water.
Brian discovers he has developed a case of appendicitis and we make a
middle-of-the-night trip to the ER. Brian has surgery at five in the morning.
Thanks to Benjamin waking Brian up, Brian’s appendicitis hadn’t progressed to a
dangerous stage and Brian recovered quickly and was able to return home about
12 hours later.
February 26th –
Elizabeth goes into labor at about five in the evening. Sends Brian and
Benjamin off to swim lessons, because “If it is the real thing, I’m sure we
have a while.” Brian and Benjamin return home a couple hours later to Elizabeth
panting and on the phone with the hospital. (OK, so this isn’t an ER story,
still involves the hospital.) Brian and Elizabeth arrive at the hospital and
call the doula, Wendy, who later reported that, for a split second she thought
she wasn’t going to make it for the baby’s birth. Conner James was born at
00:00 pm.
June 20th – The bad
news: I (Elizabeth) broke my arm. Brian wasn’t home. Benjamin wasn’t home.
Conner was home, but of little use (4 months old, what do you expect). The fire
department was very helpful. The ambulance drivers, well they got me to the ER
but certainly didn’t break any speed barriers doing it. The doctors were
helpful and made me feel better about being stupid enough to break my arm in
the first place (I wasn’t the first person that day to come in with injuries
resulting from being on a ladder). The good news: the only injuries I sustained
were a broken arm, lots of bruises on my left side, and lots of feeling stupid.
August – On the way home from
daycare, Benjamin says “I put beans in my ears today.” I think: “Green beans
for lunch; they expect the kids to eat that?” After bath, Benjamin says that
the water couldn’t get into he’s ears tonight because of the beans. I think: “Hum,
perhaps I should check this out.” Sure ’nuf, a little white bean in each ear.
We go to the ER. We recognize the triage nurse. He doesn’t try hard enough not
to laugh when we describe our problem. We recognize another nurse and a doctor.
We’re thinking that we need to start going to the other hospital in the area.
Elizabeth is wondering when the insurance people are going to come after her.
The ER doctor gets one bean out. The other has to be removed the next day by an
ear specialist who managed to do it quite quickly considering that Benjamin,
who was being held down by three adults, was busy scaring everyone else in the
office by screaming at the top of his lungs during the entire procedure. In the
end, no damage was done to Benjamin’s ears and we hope that he might think
twice before trying to stick anything in his ears or nose again.
That’s the end of the “trips to
the ER” stories. Big thanks to Rich and Missy Fisher and Dave and Anne Lund for
all their help through all of this.
At the end of September, Brian
left his job – on his own terms, which is more then can be said of many of his
colleagues. After some time to think about his career direction and spending
some quality time with the boys, he has started his own company, Alchemy
Marketing Group. Things are falling into place well and, ironically, his first
client is the company he left in September.
So, as I sit here writing this, we
hope that our “interesting” year is at an end. See the rest of the card for
details much more fun.
May your holidays be filled with
love, joy, and peace. May the new year bring you happiness and uninteresting
times.
