Despite my heartiest efforts to overdose on my kid and sicken myself on his presence I am still knotted up over his departure.  Actually the knots were from more than him but I will get to that in a minute.  

We spent the majority of his (very short) two week visit at the lake (it was the first time he’d been out in over two years) where we were able to spend quality time with each other as well as the rest of the family.  My brother and his wife were out for a week and even though the weather was shit…again or maybe I should say STILL (WORST SUMMER EVER!!!)…we did manage to have some fun and even get a little work done on the cabin.  We should have taken more advantage of The Boy’s great height and had him insulate the ceiling but his dad wouldn’t let him help with the roofing in case he fell off and damaged his brain.  Protect the brain!!  Of course it was ok if my husband fell off as apparently the pea in his melon is not worth safeguarding.

As his time to fly approached I felt myself becoming more and more despondent and I was crabby and out of sorts so it was no surprise to me when my husband woke up Sunday morning with a pain in his belly.  Heiny internalizes his stress leading to the shits and gastric agony but he said this was different.  He told us the pain was in his sternum.  Frankly I didn’t know my dear hubby even knew what a sternum was but apparently he retained something from his first aid training beyond how to apply a bandaid.  All day he complained about his sore sternum and I have to admit I kind of brushed it off as a rib out of place or a pulled muscle.  Later that night he developed a terrible fever and I realized there had to be more too it.  I tried to convince him to let me take him to the hospital but he refused.  He wouldn’t even let me bring him home figuring he’d sleep it off and be fine the next morning.  

He had been in bed about half an hour before I joined him and even though he claimed to be freezing his body was hot to the touch.  He was on fire and not in the fun way.  I was worried and again I tried to convince him to seek medical attention and once more he refused.  I was awake all night, it was too hot under the covers with him and too cold uncovered and I was afraid that he’d croak on me and I’d wake up next to his corpse.  It’s morbid I know but it’s where my mind went.  His fever broke at about two in the morning and the sweating started.  I’ve slept in the wet spot, it’s not pleasant but it beats the hell out of sleeping in a soggy bed in single digit temperatures.  I feared we’d be popsicles by morning…which incidentally is better than being a fudgcicle.

By morning his fever had been replaced by an inability to breathe.  He struggled for every gasp of air so we packed up and came home early…and still the mule would not go to the ER (it was a holiday so the clinic was not open).  We got The Boy packed and organized and did up all of his laundry and my husband seemed to feel a little better toward the evening but the pain was persistent and his breathing was still laboured.  

He called the clinic first thing Tuesday and booked an appointment.  His pain had gotten worse overnight and he was finally admitting that there was something really wrong.  Of course I was mad at him by this time because he had left it so long and I didn’t need the stress of his illness on top of the stress of our son leaving.  It is all about me after all.

The Boy was booked to fly out of Cowtown at 11am on Wednesday but since he had to be at the airport by 9am and it’s a three hour drive from here we decided to go in to the city on Tuesday afternoon and spend the night in a hotel.  We were afraid that even if we left home early that if there were any traffic delays or road construction he could potentially miss his flight.  He also had to go through customs and immigration and that could have cost him time as well so we wanted to be sure he had plenty of time in case there were any unforeseen delays.

My husband called me after his doctor appointment to tell us that he had been taken to the emergency room as the doc wanted to do some tests.  They had him on oxygen and were doing an ecg and he had been given morphine, Zantac and nitro spray and was at least able to breathe a little better.  The tests were inconclusive so they decided to keep him overnight for observation and they moved him into the last available bed in the local hospital.  

My anxiety level was through the roof.  I felt torn wanting to spend a nice final evening with my kid and wishing I was at my husband’s side.  By the time we got to the hotel the explosive diarrhea started…thankfully it waited until there was a toilet nearby and didn’t hit me in the car!!  We ordered room service as we were both too beat to go out for food but despite our hunger we were both too distracted to do little more than pick at our meals.  I stared at the TV long after The Boy fell asleep and finally after two ativan I was able to doze off.

I called the hospital as soon as I woke up and a very accommodating nurse took His Highness the phone so I could talk to him.  He had had a rough night too, with only three TV’s in the entire hospital (and none of them in his room) he had been bored silly.  He said at one point he began counting the blades of grass outside his window and he was about to start counting the shingles on the ‘prune building’ (old folks home) when Harry arrived like a knight in shining newsprint with a paper and a magazine.  The good news was that they had not found anything life threatening so they’d be releasing him later but there were still a few tests that the doc wanted to run (including an ultrasound that he had to go for this morning) to check for gallstones.  He was tired and cranky but at least he was alive.  He can’t die, I don’t know how to pay the bills.

The airport was a clusterfuck.  We had weighed The Boy’s luggage but apparently our scale is off (which means I weigh more than I thought and I’m not real happy about that either!) and he was 9 lbs over which meant he’d either have to jettison some articles or pay an extra 125$ per bag.  I am totally pissed about the whole baggage situation, as it was we had to pay for luggage ($25 for one suitcase and $15 for the other) on top of his already expensive plane ticket with the addition of the fuel surcharge,  Crooks, they’re all fucking crooks capitalizing on fuel increases yet when the price per barrel drops you never see that reflected at the pumps or in airline ticket prices.  It’s a fucking joke and we are so being ripped off.  The kid put on an extra coat and his leather jacket and we stuffed as much socks and underwear into his carry on bags as we could until we got the one suitcase to 50 lbs.  He had to leave me his rain jacket and a hoody to get the other bag down to the acceptable(!) weight.  It will be cheaper for him to buy new ones if and when he needs them than to spend the money on the overweight luggage.  It still frosts me that they are so sticky on it, I hope it comes back to bite them in the ass when people are traveling less due to their bloated rates.

I was fighting back tears before we got to customs and the big double doors where I’d have to say goodbye to him (again!).  I gave him the usual speech as I hugged him, “Don’t forget anything on the plane, keep an eye on your shit in the Chicago airport, don’t join a cult, when people are rioting over politics (or sports or anything really) just go inside and hide, don’t be scared but be cautious, call me when you get there etc.”  My heart was in my throat as he walked out of sight and I headed back to the car sobbing as the weight of the past few days finally squished the tears right out of me.

I just wanted to be home.

Our son arrived safely in Chicago and caught a shuttle bus to Notre Dame and he now has a couple days to get settled and find his bearings before he starts work on Monday.  This is only his second time in the US and he is culture shocked and amazed at how different everything is down there from the people to the groceries.  So far he seems to be alright, I am sure he has some anxiety but if not I have plenty for both of us.

Heiny won’t know the results from his tests for a few days so until then he’ll just have to stay high on pain meds.  I may have to join him, it’s been a rough week.