The Kid Makes a Comeback

I came to the Dad party kinda late-I wasn't the fastest person on earth to get married and was certainly in no hurry to to have children. I didn't mind practicing, but the whole 'small human being entirely dependent on me for everything' aspect didn't excite me at all. Then my wife pointed out she'd been putting up with it since she and I got married. Et tu, Sigrid?

I love being a father. I'm not much better at it than being a husband but our son, Patrick, and daughter, Michelle, are some of my favorite people and I can't be accused of favoritism since I was hardly involved in their growing up, except in my dreams.

I figured I'd spend the next couple of weeks off from work just Dixie Driftin' which I do well. I'm off because of illness, as I may have mentioned a few times. The people I work for are sick of me (and I of them for the most part), but as it happened it was a good thing yesterday I was off and home.

Our son wound up in the ER on one of those, 'the cure is worse than the disease' situations. He broke a wisdom tooth at some point Wednesday evening and took ibuprofen for the pain. He was in a lot of pain. You can do the math.

By the time he called us shortly after seven in the morning he'd taken a not inconsiderable amount of the stuff and knew he needed help. I, along with this sister as navigator, set off to Mystic to retrieve him and get him to the hospital.

This being Connecticut, and Eastern Connecticut at that, nothing is in a straight line so an on-paper twenty minute drive takes a lot more like 45 minutes to happen. I still think if I had a red flashing light and a siren I could shave a couple of minutes off the trip, and may wind up purchasing the necessary accoutrements  but let's see what Santa brings....

We wound up in line at the ER behind someone named Patricia Kerry but she disappeared as if we had invented her and the staff of Backus Hospital worked on Patrick. Meanwhile, I had more ambulance deliveries in store as Michelle had to see her orthopedic surgeon for an ongoing foot situation that the doctors will now need to do an MRI to help make a determination. She was a little chagrined the blood tests didn't seem to have answers, but as I pointed out, they helped the physicians understand what the condition isn't.

From there, it was back to Backus (another great name for a rock band, even if not from Seattle) where Patrick was just about ready to be released with a combination of infection fighters and painkillers that should have him starry eyed and laughing through the weekend. I smiled thinking about a time, before we had Michelle, where he and I spent very nearly a whole day hanging with the Arbitersamariterbund,  EMT's, but that was a long time ago, the day was anstrengend and the hour is late. -bill kenny