All in all, a lovely trip back to Ohio.
We started off with a bang by missing our 6:40am flight. I’ve complained about it enough that I felt extra stupid. We raced to the airport, even though we knew we couldn’t make it. We tried for standbys early in the day, and wound up finally catching a flight that connected in Cleveland. We had about six glamorous hours at Newark Airport. At first there was a lot of misery, but then I had a brainwave and gratefully spent $90 on day passes to the fancy pants lounge. This is not something I would normally do. But it was a holiday, and I wasn’t going to spend a big chunk of Thanksgiving sitting in the terminal. An internet connection and an open bar made the wait go much faster. I will remember this for the future: You don’t have to use the lounge of the airline you’re flying. We went to the President’s Club because we were on Continental. But we certainly had plenty of time to walk over to Delta, and past experiences tell me the Crown Room is better.
The family is, for the most part, in good shape. My cousin got her lumpectomy results while we were there and the doctor said things are looking as good as they possibly could. He said they got it all and she does not have cancer now. She’ll take Tamoxifan for five years, and have prophylactic radiation treatment. So that’s a huge relief.
Jerry had his heart surgery last week too, so we spent part of every day hanging out in cardiac intensive care. Another learning from the trip: If you’re going to have major surgery, do it over the holidays. There were almost no non-emergency surgeries happening so the nurses had much more time on their hands than they normally do. I’m sure they’d always take great care, but it was such a luxury that they were never in a hurry. I even went out and brought back ice cream for the whole shift on our last day and everyone came around for scoops. Nearly a week in CICU sounds like a terrible thing. But Jerry is the best patient in the world and it really paid off. He got in even better shape before the surgery and followed every doctor order to the letter. As a result, his recovery was fast and relatively painless. I was really proud of him.
On top of a week of medical happiness, I got to see my good friends, went to a high school friends dinner, got lots of quality time with mom and got to meet our new niece Audrey. And every single one of them went well.
So I had a lot to be grateful for this week.
And tomorrow morning I will quit my job. Anticipating this conversation makes my hands sweat, since I know my boss will be in a really bad position, and because I honestly like her. But I just keep reminding myself not to be an egomaniac. Everyone is replaceable.
jaysaint 