April Fool’s Day 2015 was not a good day, but it could have been much worse.
I discovered a(nother) flat tire when I went to bike up for
work. (at least I didn't have it go out somewhere in the middle)
Ok, I have the option of driving to light rail and taking
light rail to work. My son, Benjamin, however wanted to use the car, so he offered
to drop me off and leave the car for me at the light rail station later.
That was fine. Except
he called in the afternoon saying there were no parking spaces at my usual
light rail station, plus he had another errand he was trying to figure out. Well, he works on Bradshaw, so I told him he
could leave the car at the light rail station at Bradshaw. That would give him
a little more time to do what he needed to do and would only take me a few
extra minutes. As I rode light rail out
and found myself at the Sunrise station quite a bit past Bradshaw, I realized
that there had been no Bradshaw station.
WHERE was my car? I called his
work and was glad they actually put him on.
But I could hardly hear him because of the background noise at the
restaurant. Plus, I had asked my phone
GPS for directions to Bradshaw and Folsom and the phone decided to start giving
me audio directions in the middle of the phone call. I barely heard “Butterfield” station. I missed the train going back and had to wait
for the next one. Once at the
Butterfield station, I had a little trouble finding my car, but (whew!) I did.
Naturally, I was late
getting home. Almost time to leave to drive
for Andrew to do 11 Year Old Scouts. Only because the car was not home when he got
there, he thought Benjamin (who gets home LATE) still had it, so he cancelled
Scouts. Which made me feel a little like
a failure.
But hey! That means maybe I
could work on my bike (remember the flat tire) AND get a shower.
Except we were completely out of milk. Andrew started some potatoes for mashing and
I went to the store. When I am stressed
/ depressed, I want protein, particularly beef, and dream of steak. Usually I resist, of course, and eat hamburger
if I can. But rib eye steak was “only”
$5/lb, so I abandoned plans for hamburger patties and bought some steak and
some asparagus. It was going to be a
good evening, after all.
Well, naturally cooking dinner, even a simple one, took me
longer than it should. Finally we sat
down to enjoy our meal. Within minutes,
Andrew was in trouble –a piece of meat stuck in his esophagus. Fortunately, lower enough down that he could
breathe and talk. But he could not
swallow or cough it up. He struggled
with it for quite a long time. I was
helpless to assist him, but had to stay in the same room just in case the
situation changed dramatically. When
Joseph got home, I put him on Andrew watch and I took a shower. By this time, Andrew was ready to admit that
the situation was not going to resolve itself.
He called Kaiser and was instructed to come in to ER.
We were pleased with how quickly he was taken from the
waiting room to an ER room and everyone was very nice. The ER doctor
(no, we did not see the relative of a future relative) called in a
specialist – a Gastroenterologist – who, in due time, ran a scope down my son’s
throat with the intent to either shove down or pull up the blockading
meat. Andrew’s esophagus rapidly becomes
too small for the scope to go all the way down, but the doctor was able to pull
out the meat. They put Andrew under for
the procedure an d he stayed under for a good long time, getting some rest
while I waited and didn’t.
It appears to be eosinophilic esophagitis. His esophagus has ridges and is smaller and more rigid than normal. Threre are medications that may help. He should mostly eat soft foods. He should cut his (non-soft) food very, very small.
While we were in the ER we missed saying good-bye to
Benjamin who left for Utah with his fiancé and some friends. I am not exactly sure when I see him
next. Sunday night? Monday? That was a small disappointment. No good-bye hug.
We eventually checked out sometime after 2am and were home a
little after 2:30. I had emailed my boss
from the hospital saying I didn’t know when or if I would be in. I turned off my alarm and although I had trouble getting to sleep, I got
about 3 hours before waking up to feed the dog and have family prayer. I tried to go back to sleep, however I am not
good at sleep on request (although it seems I can fall asleep almost anywhere,
almost any hour when I should not and do not wish to). Finally I came to work.
Bad news. This throat thing is a chronic
condition. He loses Kaiser medical
coverage through his dad on May 22 and he/we don’t know what we can get/afford. I didn't fix my bike tire, either. But we should be able to work these things out.
Good news. Andrew lives
and breathes - with a positive and thankful attitude.
