Steam Roller

Elsie took my last post as a challenge. The very next day I picked Elsie up from J's and we went over to hang out with the judge's wife until church time. J said that Elsie had tried but had not succeeded. At the judge's, I put her on the floor and we were talking, and I look down and Elsie has rolled over to her left side except for that arm. She worked and worked and finally got it free--SUCCESS! August 26, 2009, at 5 p.m. on the dot. Just over a week shy of four months. She did it again 19 minutes later. The crux? Elsie hates being on her belly. She'll scream and throw a fit, straightening her arms and legs with no hope of rolling from her belly to her back.

Prayer is needed, please. Yesterday around lunch time, J's husband started complaining about numbness in his left arm and saying he didn't feel well at all, asking to go to the hospital. We have contingency plans in place, that she should call the judge's wife in case of emergency, but nobody answered, so J put Elsie and Big J in the car and drove to the emergency room, where she had to run inside to get a nurse to bring a wheelchair out to get Big J. Because of the hospital's flu outbreak restrictions, healthy persons under the age of 19 are not allowed in the hospital, so J had to leave Big J at the hospital by himself (300+ kids were out of school in our district this week due to the flu--swine or otherwise). They waited for me at J's, and when I got there to get Elsie, J left immediately to go to the hospital. She had called to check on his status, and the nurses told her it wasn't a heart attack, and that they probably wouldn't admit him, but that they would keep him long enough to see the cardiologist. Well, last night, Eli called to check on them at the hospital and the nurses said that Big J was still in the ER but was going to be admitted within the hour for overnight observation. J believed Big J was okay and told Eli she would be available to watch Elsie today.

So, I took Elsie to J's this morning. She was there and excited to see Elsie. I asked about Big J and she said that he was still in the hospital and that he had an appointment with the cardiologist. She would take Elsie to stay with the church secretary (who loves Elsie to death) for a couple of hours while J went to meet with him. That was the plan.

Eli set me a text message sometime mid-morning telling me that Elsie was with the judge's wife. I didn't question. J, judge's wife, secretary--all people I know and trust. But since it was a change of plans, I figured something must have happened.

Evidently, it was determined that Big J did had a heart attack after all. The hospital called J to come because they needed Big J's consent to do a heart catheter, but he was so out of it that they needed her to give consent instead. It was still early. The secretary doesn't get to work until 9, so J called judge's wife (if you're wondering, I'm not using her name for the sake of political privacy--it's almost the judge's re-election year). Wife, a former pediatric nurse, said that she would keep Elsie all day, that J didn't need to worry about the baby, that she needed to be with Big J. So, Elsie spend the whole day over there. It's actually closer to my school than J's. And since we're down to one car (the Saturn's A/C is being repaired), I stayed there while Eli hitched a ride home with the judge, and then we all came home.

So, to sum it up, please pray for J and her husband, Big J. She said he's had a couple of heart attacks before, and that aside from the catheter, there's nothing they can really do. Also, they're thinking that if he has another one, it will be a big one. There's a lot of stress for both of them in this situation.

On a couple of completely unrelated notes, there's a piece of kitty litter under the keys on this keyboard (thanks, Coco) and it keeps migrating around, currently under the N key, though it started out under the J key. It's driving me CRAZY! And secondly, I went back to the bead studio last night and made a new necklace--learned how to string silk--and I will maybe put up a picture, but I promise, Sunshine, to put up a picture of Elsie along with it, okay? Equally Elsie, equally Erin. Love you.

Cheers.