A Day Not to Remember

Last Thursday was one of the stranger days I've experienced.

In the morning, I took our dog, Gabby, to the vet. On the way there, I stopped at BK to get something to eat. While there, I saw on the news that Al-Zarqawi had been killed. That is a huge development in Iraq. One can only hope that this finally helps stabilize things over there. But, I wasn't much in the mood to celebrate. Any other day, I've would've watched the news updates all day long to find out more.

But this morning, I was preoccupied as I was taking our dog to the vet. When I left Gabby, I figured it was the last time I'd see her (and in my post of June 9, that was indeed the case).

When I got to work, I had a messge to call Barbara, the secretary in the Social Work program. They were having an orientation for their new students that I was assisting with. I attempted to call her but she was not in. About a half-hour later, there was a lot of activity going on in the lobby. Something happened upstairs and the ambulance was brought in. What happened was that Barbara collapsed and was rushed to the hospital where she died shortly thereafter. One of our staff members, who is a nurse, ran upstairs to adminster CPR, but she was already too far gone.

Meanwhile, as this is going on, another co-worker had to rush out because her father was being taken to the hospital and as it turns out, needed open heart surgery.

Later in the afternoon, I get the call from my vet that Gabby has to be put down.

Then, we get a call from Chicago that Dorene's sister, Dianne, is not doing very good at all. She is in extreme, constant pain and the doctors are totally baffled as to why. She has been hospitalized all week and nothing seems to be working. She is on a pain-killer much more powerful than morphine and it doesn't seem to be helping. So, Dorene and her dad decide to head to Chicago the next day. In the midst of this, I call Dorene and give her the news on Gabby, which she expected, but still was hard.

Back at the office, I am helping the Director of the Social Work program with their orientation. All their students are huddled in our office area as they clear the main lobby to bring the stretcher through. When they asked us to clear out the whole lobby and shut the doors, you knew it was bad, and it was.

All of us are pretty rattled.

Another co-worker gets a call that a relative has lapsed into a coma in New York.

Back home, Dorene is experiencing chest pains and shortness of breath. She isn't sure how much of this is physical or mental. She went to the doctor on Wednesday and got a clean bill of health, but she isn't absolutely convinced.

What a day, not one I wish to go through again.

Postscript:
On Monday, Dorene has not slept all night. She is still having the pains and is having a lot of panic attacks. I stay home so she can go to the doctor. Her regular doctor is not in because her father passed away over the weekend. Nothing is found wrong with Dorene. She is given some medication which only serves to make her very sick.

When I call in to work, I'm told that Jeff, in our career services office, will not be in because his mother passed away.

I get a call from my mom. She has been to the eye doctor and the bottom line is that she is going blind. Her left eye is beyond repair and her right away, while still healthy, is giving the doctors much to worry about. Could she have her sight for months or years? We don't know.

What is going on here? But a bit of good news. Diane is doing wonderful and is scheduled to be released today. It's been a wild few days with the steadiest stream of bad news I've ever encountered.