A Day for Illness and Discomfort
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
Emerald Blots’ 20th birthday, down in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Tuesday brought flurries in the morning of another gray.
By ten o’clock, Dad and Linnea both had sore throats and went up to Walgreens to be cultured. The tests confirmed that Dad had strep again and Linnea potentially had it. So while they were getting medication, Mom dropped off Collette back at the apartment to prevent it from spreading through the family yet again.
Just as they turned into the apartment complex, Mom got a call on her cell phone from Carrie, who was all dressed and ready to go apply at NAWS with Lucia.
“Lucia’s at the doctors’,” Carrie said. “They think she has low blood sugar. Apparently she passed out. She could even have diabetes. They don’t know yet.”
Aunt Petunia had diabetes, so it was a greater possibility. So Carrie postponed their ride over to NAWS until the next day, depending upon Lucia’s condition.
Meanwhile, Mom had to hurry off to run errands before she had to be back at the house and serve up a meal for Joe and Rose to bring to the Gwanael family at choir (while Mrs. Gwanael was going through chemo treatments). Then, from there, Mom was off again to bring Grandma Snicketts to the doctor over at the hospital to discover the cause of the persistent pain in her back, which she suspected was an internal injury from the fall that she had sustained early within the past months.
Meanwhile, Collette was encouraging Rose to print off the photos from Egypt. It promised to make a fantastic album.
And it seemed as though everything was going smoothly towards the closing date on the house – January 31st.
And Collette had a very quiet afternoon at the apartment, not exactly knowing what to do with herself. She started the laundry and typed up things. Come evening, she slipped into her pajama pants and one of OLeif’s big T-shirts, which was much more comfortable. Then she started spaghetti for OLeif’s dinner and listened to various bits of Celtic music between John Piper sermons. And baby got the hiccoughs. Sometimes, sometimes, it was good to have quiet days alone.
Later, Rose sent Collette all fifteen hundred plus of most of her pictures. She also informed Collette that she thought she was also coming down with a sore throat. It seemed to be a never-ending cycle.
In the evening, Mom passed on word that there were test results coming back soon for Grandma Snicketts after they had both spent three hours at the doctor’s office, having Grandma go through a number of very uncomfortable tests.
It was a troubling day for illness.
But OLeif brought back Collette a blue raspberry slushie on his way home from work that night – a pleasant treat to end the day.
“Our lives often lack the flavor of eternity.” – John Piper