"Attention Must Be Paid"--

Some days, some years even, are like the air and solid ground. All is well. People behave the way we'd like them to.  We seem to behave the way other people like us to. Stories have happy endings.

Some days, some years even, shake us up. We encounter paradoxes and disturbing things.  They part the curtain and introduce us to formerly unimaginable things we'd rather not see.  Or the slow accretions of aging we've gone through for years suddenly lurch into the foreground, demanding attention. 

Two nights ago I had the unique-to-me opportunity to ride inside an ambulance. My back went out trying to remove a compression stocking. 

Four medics showed up and got me onto a stretcher while Jan supervised.  The newness and suddenness of the situation made me wish I'd packed a Go Bag for times like these. What should I take?  Who would care for Luci? Should I call my family in Virginia, Georgia and Colorado?  Jan handed me my phone (low charge) and the men got my pocket book and a pillow from my bed.

These men did the kind of work Will used to do: taking blood pressure, putting little sticky things on my chest.  

I felt like a minor character in The Pitt--being rolled into an emergency room. But unlike the full noisy cast of The Pitt, The NE Baptist Hospital was almost deserted as far as I could see. The main guy in charge of Back-Out-Lady stayed with me in the hall until I was checked in, and we had one of those small world conversations that revealed pretty soon that he knew one of my best friends who, like him, had grown up in  Utopia, Texas.

The next day:  Calls from Georgia, Virginia, Colorado: Do you need me to come? Come stay with us.  I don't like living so far apart.  Jan and Freda and Cecelia took great care of me and Luci, doing all the things I couldn't yet manage. 

So this summer, in addition to two very pleasurable trips, one to Colorado, one to Georgia, I've fallen flat on my face in Albuquerque, had to move out for a power outage, and discovered what people mean when they say their backs are "out."  I"m moving gingerly, but planning--as soon as I'm up and about better--to create a Go Bag to be prepared for the next time, if there is one. Here's my list so far of what goes in it: 

A fast phone charger

A list of people to call or text

Password to phone--if you have one.  (I don't).

Copies of insurance card and ID

List of prescriptions.

A change of clothes, underwear, toothbrush, toothpaste, etc. 

Two or three books and something to write with. 

Non-slip socks

In my case, a note that I have an embedded  neuro-stimulator and controller--in case imaging has to be done and the stem needs shutting down.

Hand lotion. 

Laptop or iPad and charger.