Vacation Posts

August 5, 2006

Well, Joel called today to say he and Sarah and five of his roommates are driving to Sonoma for wine tasting, general festivities. He only took one pill, sounded totally cheerful, glad to have her there of course. It's after eleven p.m. and I am wearing a sweatshirt! Is that amazing or what after all this superhot weather?

I'm planning to go home maybe early Monday. We have two cars and thus can leave separately.

August 4, 2006

It has been some vacation week for the Willis-Weinberger-Geller crew. It started with Andy's brother's two week old cute red car getting rear ended on the Mass Pike on the way to meet us at the lake. This required hours of phone conversation with insurance companies, estimate companies, and repair people. Later, David left his wallet in a movie theater.

But none of that compares to the phone call from Joel on Tuesday morning to say he had a terrible stomach ache, thought he’d had food poisoning. I was panicked by the fact he was across the continent and Andy was on his longest bike ride ever, heading for Pittsfield. I told Joel to get a cab and go to the emergency room. I’m not sure why I told him that. Maybe just blind luck, maybe because the pain woke him and got worse overnight. His apartment is near Stanford University, so he went to that emergency room.

Meanwhile, I drove to Pittsfield to pick up Andy and the bike at the Ben and Jerry's, and it was the hottest day so far, really miserable. We drove on as planned to the Clark Museum in Williamstown, calling Joel's cell phone often and getting his machine over and over. Andy said not to worry, it was a stomach virus, emergency rooms take forever, you aren't allowed to use cell phones while you're there, etc.etc.

Meanwhile I got more and more worried, and finally, as we continued our plan, which was to meet David, Ann, and Nathan for dinner, I got hold of Joel's girl friend Sarah, and she said she too had spoken to Joel but not since he got to the emergency room (by cab). She was reassuring too, like Andy.

I finally stopped waiting to hear from him and obtained the Stanford Hospital emergency room number through information and got through to a place where they had heard of Joel who was, they said, "talking to a doctor.” I was ecstatic that he was alive, and finally got him after a few more calls and he said, "Didn't you get my message at the cottage?" (No, because David and Ann and Nathan had left too soon to meet us for dinner and movies).

They were, Joel said, admitting him for an appendectomy, and he couldn’t talk long, standing hurt too much.

This conversation took place in the food court at the Pittsfield mall while the others were in various movies still believing that Joel had simply been made to wait for six hours in the emergency room to be sent home for a stomach virus.

From then on it was frequent calls, by cell phone as long as we had service, then later from the house phone at the lake, Joel now on a floor in a room where you could talk to him (all alone! three thousand miles from family and friends except for his roommates, one of whom came to the hospital to see him). He wanted Andy, who was reassuring. More hours, he waits in the room. We talk to nurses, ask for doctors. Ffinally at midnight (nine in California) I got a nurse who said he'd been taken to surgery, the doctor would call us. The doctor didn't call us, we all waited one by one went to bed, including me, but I couldn't sleep, and at three thirty a.m., in bed but still awake, hot and sticky and tossing and turning, I called the floor again and got the same nurse who said they'd just brought him up from surgery, and I could talk to him! Which was amazing in itself, and of course the doctors had STILL NOT called. It turned out I couldn't call his room directly, and the nurse couldn't transfer my call in, finally Joel called back, was groggy but alive and said he felt better than he had in two days, well that was because he was still anaesthesized, I guess, or at least his belly was. It was done laparoscopically, and the doctor finally called, a resident, not the surgeon, who said he was fine, it would all be fine.

By this time all I wanted to do was sleep. They released him only twelve hours later! and yesterday that's Thursday he woke up miserable and called us and Andy said he should call the surgeon (who he had never met in a waking state). He never got the surgeon, but did get one of the residents he had met who basically told him "Duh we cut you open 36 hours ago what did you expect?"

By the end of the day, taking his narcotics, he was making dinner for his housemates (it was his turn, he'd already bought the ingredients), hot wings, potato salad, and mojitos! And today Friday he says he's still not better, he still hurts, but sounds much, much better and is on the phone with everyone, waiting for Sarah's visit, planned long afo, and I'm so glad she's going to be there. Grateful, grateful. On all counts.

July 30, 2006

Gone fishing! Actually, swimming eating rowing and Goldberg Variations at a local concert series on a harpsichord. We're at lake Buel in the Berkshires, with Ellen, Greg, David, Ann, Nathan and Leah yet to come! Internet access is by dail-up via aol, and I've already used up this month's allottment of minutes, so we won't be on here much. Weinberger week is always fun, though, lots of talking and laughing, and we're scheduled to go see Hamlet at Shakespeare and company.