10/12/21

We left for the big city at around 10:00 am. Ethan had to attend English class. We got a call as we were leaving the house. NYC needed to get a copy of Ethan’s negative covid test. The copy of the results that I screen shorted and emailed yesterday weren’t good enough because it didn’t have his birthdate written on it.

I was asked to call the lab and have the results faxed (my nemesis) over to NYC. I called the lab and they said I needed to Call the “Medical records” office. I called and was on hold for many minutes. Finally we got to talk to a live person. They informed us that the hospital has to call and get that information, not us. I called my friend in NYC and told her. I had to give her the info, while driving, and she was quite annoyed (not with me) that they would fax the info requested at my request. I get that too. Finally, we got it taken care of. 

We had a few other calls along the way. We dealt with those calls as we drove along.

We arrived around 4:00 pm. We stopped once to eat and go to the bathroom. We stopped a second time because we were teetering on Empty for longer than I was comfortable with. It was a debacle to get to a gas station in New Jersey. 

Every place in NJ seems to have an off ramp but not a convenient on-ramp. After some wrong turns, we made it to the gas station. It was very off putting to not be able to pump my own gas. Mostly because I am an introvert and I had to talk to a stranger. I also didn’t have tip money and had to do a mad scramble through my car to find some $1.00 bills (not from my stripping side gig) to give to this nice man.

The drive was stunning. Ethan and I noted how the leaves aren’t changing as much yet at home, because we live close to the lake and it keeps us a little warmer in the fall. But as we ventured all the way across the state into PA, the colors of the leaves changed depending on the terrain. The more south we got, it seemed the more color we saw.

Tones of vibrant reds, oranges and yellows with the different shades of green painted colorful changing landscapes for us. I don’t know how many times I made Ethan look “at how beautiful the colors are”. He probably was so sick of it.

We made it to the hotel and it was far better than the other one we stayed at a few months ago. It is basically across the street and about the same price. It smells a bit skunky on our floor but that is legal so it is ok.

Between Ethan and I, we were able to get the dialysis machine set up.

We met some wonderful people for dinner. It is one of our bright spots of this whole entire heart ordeal. The people we met have become our family. We love them. 

We had a delightful evening which makes these trips quite a bit bit better. Ethan is not looking forward to tomorrow. I do t blame him. But I know he will rise to the challenge and conquer the day.

He will get some kidney toxic contrast as part of his testing. We will get rid of those toxins through dialysis. Boom! Another reason we are thankful that I trained to get a home unit I can travel with. Kicking hell in the balls once again. Ha ha hell…..you can suck it!