January 13, 2011
Thankfully, it's not Friday.
Because I don't think Mer could take any more bad luck.
Yesterday, I'm in my office, working, and Keith is lounging in his aptly named "Keith's Korner" reading Beowulf, I think.
His cell phone rings.
From the tone of his voice and level of politeness, I knew he wasn't talking either of his sisters.
Or his friends.
Oh my keen powers of deduction. . .
My spidey senses tingling, I knew something was up.
And in all likelihood whatever was going on was related to Mer and so bad that it had to be relayed through Keith.
Got.
It.
In.
One.
On the other end of the phone was a manager from the theaters.
Calling to ask if Mer could be retrieved from her place of employment as she fell down a flight of 13 stairs.
13 narrow, steep stairs.
Injured, she was.
How was yet to be ascertained.
If that child didn't have bad luck, she'd have no luck at all.
Of course, as we seem to be in a state of emergency, I don't have the car.
I'm teaching until 5.20.
Why would I have the car?
Stephen has the car.
I call Stephen and apprise him of the latest Mer-mishap.
The one following the loss of her wallet, all her i.d., including as it were, her Medicare card and preceeding the loss of her cell phone in a snow bank.
The result of hopping around like a three legged rabbit.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Mer spends her entire day in the Emergency Room.
The end result. . .
A broken patella.
I wasn't briefed of the final diagnosis until just before I picked her up.
After 5.30 pm.
Today is my three-hour film class.
And it was the first day of my three-hour film class.
And because we were in a state of Mer-mishap, it would only follow that my cell phone was dead.
I don't use it enough to warrant remembering to ascertain whether or not it is fully charged.
There I am.
In class.
Mer in the hospital probably needing an amputation, because as time passes and I hear nothing my mind starts to wander and create catastrophic, disasterous and near fatal scenarios.
Of which amputation was just the beginning.
Traveling blood clots with the potential to cause aneurysm.
Full body cast requiring feeding through a tube.
You see where this is going.
And to add, literally, insult to injury, it would appear Mother Nature was having another mood swing.
When I walked to my classroom at 2.15 the sky was cloudy, but nothing was falling from the sky.
Walking out of my class at 5.20, not so much.
A snowstorm had descended upon us with the ferocity of a screaming child wanting nourishment.
Walking from one building to the other made me speculate that this is what the Donner party felt like.
Amid the frigid temperaturs, near blinding snow and gale force winds we had to fetch Mer and Keith from the hospital.
Keith wandered up to the hospital after his class to keep Mer company.
My son comes out of the hospital pushing my oldest daughter in a wheelchair.
In a blizzard.
And because it's us, going from hospital to apartment to home was simply not an option.
It was hospital to Shoppers for crutches to bank to deposit money to other Shoppers for prescription to be told it would be 30 minutes to theater to back to Shoppers to gas station to Mer's apartment to home.
IN A BLIZZARD!
The gas stop was necessary because given the way our luck was, I could just see us in a ditch somewhere with a gimpy child and no gas.
Two different Shoppers, you ask?
The crutch rental cleaned out the remaining meager funds in my bank account, so I had to stop at the bank to cash a cheque I'd been carrying around for a week and there was another Shoppers closer to the bank machine so it made more sense to go there than to double back to the other Shoppers.
Clear as mud, right?
And why go to the theater only to have to go back to Shoppers?
Because I wasn't spending 30 minutes in the backseat of the car with a cranky, pain-riddled in front, and two cranky kids in the backseat with me.
And there were no available seats in the nicely appointed wait-for-your-prescription-here venue at Shoppers.
We had to keep moving.
Getting things done.
That was our only salvation.
And what reason could possibly exist for my sitting in the backseat of our 2006 Ford Focus station wagon with dog gate?
Mer couldn't bend her knee.
She required the additional space in front.
Fine with me.
I have been known to park my ample bootie in the backseat.
For my mother.
My brother-in-law.
I'm not above sitting in the back.
Alone.
Sitting the backseat with two additional people however, is another story.
35 pounds less of me or not, it was cramped.
Everytime I had to get out, I had to lean into Keith and Emily.
And I mean lean.
Mer isn't the only one with a wonky patella.
It felt like that ride at the exhibition. . .you know, the one with bench seats that whizzes around at the speed of light, forcing anyone unfortunate enough to be sitting on the end to experience the crushing weight of their fellow passengers until the next fling shifts everyone to the other side.
I think its called the Sizzler.
All I know is I was always the one on the end.
Extra padding and all.
Unfortunately, there was no flinging or fun during this ride.
Just me and two kids in the backseat.
Squished. Cramped. Jammed. Squeezed back there tighter than winegums in an airtight package.
While Mer and Stephen luxuriated in the spaciousness of the front seat.
And Mer has the audacity to say:
"It's fun sitting here with Mum in the back."
Good thing we were so tightly congregated that I couldn't move my arm to smack her.
Gimpy or not.
By the time we returned to Shoppers and taken possession of Mer's Tylenol 3 prescription, of which I felt I deserved at least half for the headache that had taken up residence in my frontal lobe as a result of our unplanned expedition in the midst of a blizzard while ferrying the needy and vertically challenged, I was exhausted.
Emotionally drained.
Intellectually absent.
Physically bereft.
I wanted nothing more than to come home, change into my flannel jammies, and take residence in front of my computer to work.
Work I know.
Comforting, welcoming, and sometimes even enjoyable, work has during several times in my life provided solace.
Distraction and diversion.
Work is constant.
Friendly even.
And most of the time I even know what I'm doing.
Unlike raising children.
Most of the time I feel like I'm wandering through the dark attempting to avoid sinkholes, booby traps, landmines, pitfalls while waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Or, as in the case of today, fall down a flight of stairs.
Title Lyric: Falling Down the Stairs by The Eagles
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