Uncle to the Rescue

Things were dismal when I last posted. My dad had read my entire blog from Entry #1 to the present ands was not pleased. My mom was PMSing in a big way, and I was bearing the brunt of it. My dad left town on Monday for nine days. My brother was charging me five bucks a pop for transportation up and down the stairs, and since I'm not presently earning money, I was running out of funds to pay him. This forced me to scoot up and down the stairs on my bottom, which was already sore from antibiotic injections for my kidney infection. Scooting up the stairs put a strain on my good shoulder, which made me unable to get into my bed or wheelchair from the floor. Even getting to the bathroom was an ordeal. One night I slept on the bathroom floor with whatever towels I could reach to cover me. Another night I slept on my bedroom floor. It wasn't a very nice existence.

My Uncle Steve, my pediatrician, came to check on me Wednesday. My mother was sick from one of the things that makes my mother sick. She's had leukemia and Graves' Disease with thyroid eye disease, and she has all sort of autoimmune things that she refuses to recognize but come up every so often. When my Uncle Steve showed up, he found my mother throwing up non-stop from what was probably a kidney stone. I was on the floor next to my bed with my blankets pulled off. I couldn't even reach my pillow. My brother was apparently downstairs in the family room sitting in front of the TV while eating a big bowl of ice cream. My Uncle Steve lifted me into bed while he threw some of my clothes into a duffle bag. He told my brother to get every dirty dish in the house rinsed and into the dishwasher in the next five minutes or he would not be playing, much less starting, in the next baseball game. (My uncle is the manager of our high school varsity baseball team. It's unusual for an MD to take on something like that, but the partners in his practice have been very supportive, and he has an assistant coach to take over if there's an emergency and can't leave. He donates the small coaching salary back to the basball boosters because he doesn't need the money.)

Uncle Steve carried me to his car. He helped my mom downstairs and into the car. My brother wanted to stay at home by himself (supposedly so he could take care of the dog, like we're really that gullible), but Uncle Steve forced my brother to bring the dog and to come with us. We went to my uncle's house, then my Aunt Heather, who's an RN, took my mom to the ER. My Uncle Steve yelled at my brother for a long time. He told my brother he had to give back every cent he had charged me for transportation up and down the stairs. Predictably enough, my brother had spent most of it, so my uncle took what he had, then paid me the rest out of his own wallet and said my brother could work it off in my uncle's yard. Then my uncle called my dad, and my dad asked him to put my brother on the phone so that he could yell at my brother. All things considered, it was a great evening except that I was in pain and my mother was very sick.

My mother was admitted to the hospital, but she will probably be released either tomorrow or Sunday. My Aunt Heather's sister, who lives nearby, helped me take a shower, then my uncle gave me medication that made me very sleepy. My brother is grounded indefinitely.

I don't usually rejoice so much in my brother's unhappiness, but is he so deserving of everything he is getting and more.

I got to watch "Judge Alex," either live or recorded, yesterday and today. Today was a great episode with arguing women. It wasn't quite as exciting as the Hooter's episode, but good just the same.