this post is being written in multiple sections:
0550 – heading out the door with a stop planned at Peets for coffee. Just in case I can spring George, getting across the Bay Bridge gets more and more difficult the later one tries. It is go now, or wait till after 1000. That second choice means that most likely I would both miss a chance to ask any remaining questions of his dock – and finding a parking space? Not likely.
1100 – Waiting. The Nurse Practitioner has been by. The pharmacy has dropped off a huge bag of supplies (with a co-pay no where near as dreadful as it could have been. At this point, I am happy with anything in double digits.) Platelet count is climbing, he has white cells. The decision was made to top him off with a unit of blood (which may well avoid a trip back this weekend…)
1400 -Still Waiting
1500 – Just about to lose my mind, one of the nurses manages to get all of the discharge papers so that I can meet him at the front door. Scrambling to get the car out of the ramp and through the other equally insane people who are trying to get family members freed and on the road.
This is Friday. There is traffic. For any of you who live in/near a large city, you know exactly what I mean.
After a scramble around other cars and stupids standing in the middle of the road staring at their cell phones, we are loaded up and on the way home.
14 miles for those who understand the old fashion English measurement system which the US is still wedded too. 22 KM for those in the rest of the world. At 120 km/hr down the Autobahn – this should be a piece of cake – right? For those who have to escape the gridlock of SF and the freeway system complete with on ramps on both sides and exits seemingly scattered randomly to those locations where they would most disrupt traffic, there is absolutely no fast, easy way out of the city. If anything, the Bay Bridge was even worse. My GPS wanted me to head toward Oakland. Stupidly, I didn’t believe it resulting in extra time sitting on the entrance to 580 North. Oakland + city streets would have saved 15-20 minutes. Not an insubstantial amount of time when you would like to gleefully murder the idiot in front of you who is totally disrupting traffic by continually changing lanes. He gets nowhere fast; in fact, significantly contributing to the disruption of traffic flow.
It is just about 1700 when we finally pull into the drive way.
Everyone is glad to be home. And to have us home, if the totally and completely excited golden retriever trying to crawl out the downstairs apartment window is any indication.
We still have meds and some organizational stuff to get put together. But George needs to lay down. And I need a couple of minutes of total peace and quiet.
