Wow, My Powers Really Do Do Good!

Today I received what is maybe the most wonderful comment I’ve yet received on my blog and my writing. And it came as a result of a pretty difficult situation for our family.

My grandfather had one of his knees replaced at the beginning of this week. Everything was going fine, until two nights ago when he had a heart attack. Apparently they are having trouble stabilizing his heart rate, so they had to move him from his original hospital to a hospital 3 hours away.

Because everything was changing from moment to moment and things had taken such an unexpected turn, my parents and my aunt and uncle were scrambling all last night, trying to get booked on a flight so that they could go and be with my grandparents. And apparently in the middle of all the craziness my parents said to each other, “You know, I really wish Jennifer were here. She would have so much material for her blog, and could help us find some humor in this situation, and that would really make us feel better.”

And that was so wonderful to hear, because that is always what I hope to do with my blog. My intention is always that somehow through my words and my stories, people will feel better in some way. So apparently it’s working-cool!

And now, to share the stories they told me this morning.

1. My mom called me yesterday afternoon to tell me about Grampie’s heart attack and that he had been taken to the ICU. “But,” she said, “it doesn’t matter that he’s in the intensive care unit. They’ve still got him hooked up to the machine that’s rehabbing his leg. They’re not letting him get away with anything!”

2. There was a lot of discussion on how best to move my grandfather from one hospital to another. At first they were going to fly him, but apparently flights were grounded due to fog. So they had to take him in an ambulance on a 3-hour trip from a tiny town up in the northeastern corner of Maine down to Bangor, Maine.

“3 hours is a long time to ride in an ambulance,” my dad remarked to the medical team.

“Oh, not when you’re going at 100 miles an hour,” they replied.

(Concerned.)”Well, we want him to be safe.”

“Oh, don’t worry. We haven’t hit a moose yet.” (Phew! Because that’s what we were worried about!)

3. As my parents were trying to find a flight out this morning they apparently spoke to a lot of customer service representatives who were not located in the United States and whose first language was not English. But finally it seemed that they had found some seats.

“So just to confirm,” my dad said, “I want to go from Charlotte, North Carolina to Bangor, Maine.”

“Very good sir,” replied the woman. “I have you confirmed on a flight from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Bangalore, India.”