Happy Friday.  It looks like a snowy day is ready to break as I sit down to write.  Again this blog continues to described the back story to my first book River of January.  I did not set out to be a writer, but as many others , came to the craft from a place of difficulty.  Thanks for reading.  Hopefully, the manuscript  will become available in early 2014. . .

The man lay in bed writhing in agony.  Truly at a loss I kept repeating “what should I do, who should I call?”  Escalating the urgency of the moment, my husband leaned over the bed and vomited red Gatorade.  Or was it blood?  The contents on the rug were too similar in color to decide.  I hurriedly called the Boise tumor center for direction.  The answering triage nurse assured me that it was nothing but constipation, and that was the cause of his considerable pain.  I quickly located a feeding syringe in the kitchen and loaded it up with a liquid laxative, and we waited for the desired effect.

Chad’s body did not cooperate with the laxative, instead he was nearly screaming with pain.  My hands were splayed open and I raced around the bed fretting about what I needed to do.  He yelled “call Donny.” 

What was unusual about that idea is that Donny, our neighbor, is a retired plumber.  Unless he could use his snake and wrench, there wasn’t much our handy neighbor could do to help.  But that detail escaped me at that moment, and I did call Donny’s number.  He wasn’t there.

It was his wife who answered, and after I explained the emergency she responded, “I’m on my way.”

Rocking back and forth, Chad clearly had progressed toward delirium.  By the time the neighbor pulled into the driveway, his condition had significantly deteriorated.  She came in, took one look at him, picked up the phone and dialed 911.  “911!” Here?  In the woods?  Apparently so, because about a half hour later a huge rescue vehicle backed into the drive. 

Our little mountain home was quickly transformed into medical bedlam.  Medics stood over Chad’s bed, attaching a blood pressure cuff, poking in a line of saline into his arm, and asking him a blizzard of questions.  Other paramedics commenced to shove furniture out of the way navigating a white covered gurney into the house.  Watching the chaos I had enough presence of mind to understand my helplessness, and at that moment something broke inside of me.  It wasn’t physical like my husband’s–it was more like a last, single mooring had detached and I started to float away, still present, but at the same time unfastened from the confusion.