What hurricane?

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 30 August 2008 01:56:12

The news crawl along the bottom of the TV screen said something about my parish starting evacuation at 4 p.m. tomorrow. We'll be glad to leave if a big enough hurricane is headed directly-enough towards us. If Gustav is a smallish hurricane by the time it gets here, especially if he's not aimed right at us, we won't leave.

Plans are in place for loading the kennel cages into the back of the Explorer I bought recently for Mike -- I notice he didn't grumble too long about me buying it when it turned out 1) it was meant for him, and 2) it's useful for bugging out.

Hee hee. HE will be burdened with Loup the Canine Earthquake and his overenthusiastic wriggling sidekick Lola the Lab Mix. (That's daughter's dog... the two dogs mix like itching powder and ball bearings. Not a restful combo.)

I, on the other hand, will be driving my little Saturn. Either alone (blissfully) or with daughter -- and Jess seldom stops talking. Hours and hours of chick-time. Not a bad deal, really.

Back back back roads! Scenery! Lighter traffic! Taking one's time, stopping for dinner at interesting little cafes. One can almost forget for a little while exactly why one is taking the road trip...

Life goes on and things still have to happen, hurricane or no hurricane. Today we had a couple of patients in after lunchtime, kindergarten-age twins, longtime asthma sufferers. Their Mom manages their care so well, there's seldom a major crisis -- but today, the little girl had a blood oxygen level of 83 that simply would not raise up.

What was Mom to do? She was a Katrina evacuee herself, who'd settled in our area far from close friends and family, and was faced with accompanying her little girl in the ambulance while her other small kids got off the school bus several towns away with no one home for them.

So, one of my doctors called for someone to volunteer to take the ambulance ride, and that's what I did.

I figured I'd see Mom back again about the time I would've gotten off work, and I was right -- despite the long drive home, and settling her other kids with their grandma in yet another town, and the crazy hurricane-related traffic she had to negotiate, she still made it back to the ER by 5:30 p.m.!

While she was gone the little girl had to endure some terrifying needles, and standing in weird positions for X-rays, but over all she hardly cried at all.

(The office will pay me for my whole workday, no problem. But -- don't tell them -- I'd have clocked out and gone on my own time.)