Day in the life: July 30, 2023

Sunday, July 30, 2023, didn’t track the way either my wife or I expected. She had awakened with a chill. More problematic: a red spot on the back of her leg near her ankle had expanded around her leg. Moreover, it was warm to the touch.

It sounded like the return of the cellulitis she experienced in October 2022, which became so problematic that she was hospitalized for four days as complications ensued.

She asked me to contact the local urgent care place. Alas, there were NO slots open in Albany or Troy. So she decided to drive to the Emergency Department at St. Peter’s Hospital, which seemed sage.

I noted that she was scheduled to count the offering at church. The task involves training, and only about a dozen people were equipped to do so; I’m not one of them.

I sent an email at 7:55 a.m., but the only people who replied were those who could not take on the task; I thought recent knee surgery was a perfect excuse for staying home.

Breaking bread

Meanwhile, I needed to get to church early to help set up for communion before the 9:30 service. This meant catching the 8:48 bus, which only runs every 30 minutes. It takes me three or four minutes to get to the stop. Sometimes it’s running early, so I want to leave about ten minutes early.

The phone rings at 8:39. I’m going out the door. My wife needs the name of the antibiotic she’d been taking for another ailment. I needed to find and spell the container name twice because it had 14 letters.

I walked very fast to the corner. Fortunately, the bus was one minute late, and I just caught it, getting to church by 9:03.

Besides communion prep, I needed to find someone to sub for my wife, which fortunately worked out. A couple of other snags were addressed.

Seems like old times

After communion cleanup, some folks were putting the library back together. The shelves had been removed from the walls and painted. Though there were dropcloths, flakes of dried paint still got onto the carpet.

I vacuumed once I was told where the recessed cord was hiding. It reminded me twice when I was a custodian, in 1974 at a department store in a New Paltz, NY strip mall, and in 1975, at Binghamton (NY) City Hall.

I stopped at the local pizzeria to bring home slices for my daughter and me and took the bus home.

There’s a particular bond among bus patrons. A  patron pulled the cord to get out at the downtown SUNY campus. As the driver blew past the stop, the guy told the driver he wanted to debark. The driver said one had to pull the cord, but I saw that he had; I heard the sound and could see the red STOP REQUESTED sign. The driver insisted he hadn’t heard the signal, possibly over the air conditioning. From my seat near the front, I insisted the rider was correct.

The driver then looks at his console and sees that the signal had been initiated. The driver tells the patron, “You were right, and I was wrong.” Twice. The customer said, “It’s cool,” as the driver again restated his mantra. The patron says, “It’s OK. It’s OK. I didn’t want to walk two extra blocks.”

To the hospital

After my weekly ZOOM talk with my sisters, I took a bus to St. Peter’s. My wife had said she was still in the ER area, but by the time I arrived, she had been taken to a room.

It occurred to me that I’ve mastered how to get to several hospital areas because of my wife’s time there last fall. I brought her a change of clothes, toiletries, and reading material.

Having missed the last bus home, I walked, first to Junior’s for takeout, then home. I very seldom have takeout twice in one day. But it was a weird day.

My wife spent two nights at the hospital, getting IV antibiotics, and she’s much better.