I met a new neighbor on Friday afternoon, who recently moved down here from northern Virginia. They have two daughters, ages 4 and 18 months, and a friend of mine that met her decided that we HAD to meet.
The more K. and I talked, we realized we had lots in common, besides the obvious that our daughters are close to the same age. We decided to get the girls together to play, and maybe we can take walks in the neighborhood some.
Sunday afternoon, I called to see if they wanted to go for a walk with us, and they were busy painting. But K. invited us over for an early dinner on Thursday evening. I was really looking forward to it, to meeting her husband, and getting to know our new neighbors and making them feel welcomed here.
Tonight she called to let me know that shortly after our conversation yesterday, her husband doubled over in pain — stomach pain but not nausea, and he is having trouble breathing. She ended up taking him to the ER, and he’s still there, now with a fever of 102F. They think it could be a clot in his lungs, or pneumonia, or possibly gall bladder issues. He’s having an ultrasound tonight to see what else they can discern. UPDATE: it is NOT a clot, but it appears to be an inflammation of the wall of his abdomen, so now they have him on antibiotics.
She said she almost called me back last night after bringing the girls home from the ER to put them to bed at 8, because she wasn’t sure how she was going to manage going back to the hospital to be with her husband or get him to bring him home, and she obviously couldn’t leave the girls there by themselves. And she’s new in town, knows very few people, and has no family here. Turns out he was admitted to the hospital, so she didn’t have to go back. The hospital that he’s in is less than half a mile from her house, which is good.
I told her tonight that if she needed anything, even if it was in the middle of the night, to call us. And we’d be there as soon as we could. That we depended on the kindness of others when I was on bedrest, and to please please let us know if she needed something, no matter how inane. Sending me on a run for more diapers would be a perfectly acceptable errand, and I’d be happy to do it.
I. Cannot. Imagine.
2 Responses
E, What is the update with them?
Hopefully they won’t need your help, but it must be a huge relief to know that if they need to call, they can.
Love you.
He’s having his gall bladder out today, and they’re still treating the secondary infection. His parents drove down from Wisconsin and arrived last night.