three is the magic number

My mother always says that everything happens in threes. I know that isn't original wisdom, but for someone to live so long (sorry Mama) and keep saying it, it must be true.

The last entry was made after a long and unusually hard week at work. The last two weeks have put that one to shame. You see, Chris has been battling gastrointestinal issues (sorry again) several times this year and we kept thinking it must be food poisoning, because no one else would get it, and it would only last a couple days, then disappear again. It did seem odd to us that he had previously been very healthy and doesn't fit into any at-risk category (unless you could count the fact that he's an alien--one of his favorite American legal terms). But we are not alarmists when it comes to our health. In fact, we both enjoy going out, seeing people, and generally being part of the action so much that we will often hide our ailments until it becomes impossible. This time it became impossible. I ended up calling our dear neighbor friends who send their baby to Chris for daycare and taking off work myself to watch Ella and tend to Chris. I would ask him his specific symptoms, but he would just moan (ala Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally) and say something like "It feels like there are small monsters with pointy sticks living in my belly". It didn't seem life threatening. I couldn't find a sub for work on Thursday, so I had to take Ella to a meeting. Then on Friday I took another day off without a sub, so I went in for full band rehearsal and pawned Ella off on my dad for an hour or so. I was looking forward to my brother Evan coming in from Austin, TX that night, so I was feeling rather light when I got the call from Chris that went something like this "Um, I think I need to go to the hospital". Oh goody. So Ella and I went to pick him up at home right away and found him hunched over like a 90 year old man. The ER is always fun, especially with a hungry baby and a miserable husband. It turned out that he was actually having an appendicitis that had been flaring up on and off for some time, and needed that baby out. Things got much better when they got him on the morphine drip, though. And to prove how crazy he is about hiding his ailments, he actually wanted me to take him REI for the family sale the day he got out of the hospital. Yeah right sweety.

That's one.

I realized I needed to take some more days off of work, since Chris wasn't allowed to pick Ella up, but I didn't realize I'd need to make multiple trips to the hospital. On the following Monday, my grandmother fell late at night and broke her pelvis. My dad took her to the ER, where she was admitted for a couple days before being sent to rehab where she'll now stay for a couple weeks. We brought Ella to the rehab center to say hi and she was a big hit with the lovely lady sharing a room with Grammy. Man babies are good at working a crowd! Though we were very worried about my grandmother's physical and emotional state at this point, she proved herself young at heart by being most concerned over the fact that she hadn't grabbed her compact when she left for the hospital. How was she going to powder her nose now!?

That's two.

My mom has also been battling some health issues and had a scheduled in-patient procedure at the same hospital the same week. Though hers was less eventful, and at least didn't start with a trip to the ER, it still counts. It totally counts. There's no way I can stomach another hospital visit.

That's three.

I feel bad for Evan too. Here he comes home for vacation, away from work, his first trip to the twin cities in about a year, and he gets stuck taking care of people and running errands the whole week. But he's always good at making people laugh. And I think he got in a little extra basketball watching on the TV while he was here, so it couldn't have been all bad. I wish the week had been less eventful for his sake, but it was sure nice having him here during it all.

We had three, which means we're done, right? God I hope so. But here's another number to think about that I can base a future entry on--270. It's the number of heirloom tomato seedlings we currently have under a grow light. We're willing to donate. Any takers? Cheers.