Things I Don't Need, part eleventy-one

This morning, one of my tasks was to drive the car to the dealership for service and have my dad drive me back home. Best thing to do, generally, if you don't have a real appointment, is to get there early. I figured, leave the house at 7 or thereabouts, get to the place at 7:30. Remove the rear-facing carseat from the van so that Meatball will be able to get around during the day. I proceeded downstairs on my way to do these things and HOLY MOTHER OF MOSES THERE'S A RAT DOWN THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I screamed like a hysterical woman, ran up the stairs, losing a shoe and not caring.

I'm not too squeamish or easily frightened which is why, although the experience was startling and I was concerned about walking in the basement for the rest of the day, I was perfectly fine once I didn't see the little grey thing at my feet. Nice thing about living in this house, where my parents have lived for years, is that they have the same people that do stuff around the house, including the same pest control guy. So Bruce will be coming tomorrow morning.

The other item on the agenda was to get a form filled out at the doctor's office. You know the routine. You call ahead, they tell you to bring it in, they say "Just wait here for a bit and we can take care of this." You wait. You wait, and then you wait some more, and finally you say, "I'll come back later" and leave the place kicking yourself for not doing that half an hour ago. That's how it went down this afternoon. Time wasted = me paying an idiot tax.

But I think that the granddaddy of things I don't need happened this evening, when I was with The Boy at the hospital. I should preface this by saying that I spent a truly delightful afternoon and evening with my older son. He was oodles of fun and just so cute. He was in a good mood and he even ate reasonably well, which was a change from how he had been over the past few days.

The incident in question began when I informed The Boy that I needed to use the potty. I was expecting something like this exchange that he had with Musical Daddy, but no such luck--apparently, he didn't really want me to go potty. He was also standing by the bed at the time, and he seemed to want to get in the bed, which was tricky for him to do on his own. So I picked him up and *SNAP* went his IV line. Yes, the thing through which the chemotherapy was travelling. Hanging from his accessed port (or so I thought) was a little tube, and on the floor was the rest of the tubing. It dripped once or twice before realizing that there was no patient attached.

I called the nurses' station, of course. Just a bit panicked. They took care of the floor problem and the port dressing was removed for de-access...only to discover that the de-access had already taken place by virtue of it being yanked out. Oh, and I did use the bathroom once the nurses got there. Time to reaccess. Oh wait--the port seemed to be tilted. This is after the accessing, free of numbing cream, had already been attempted. Remove, order chest x-ray. Yes, I'm serious.

Fortunately, the chest x-ray showed that the port was still just fine.

The afternoon was lovely, as I said. We played in the playroom and met some new friends. The Boy even played with some other friends. There was a toy that had a truck going down a ramp. The other little guy pushed the truck, and it kinda ran into The Boy on the opposite side of the table, which he thought was HILARIOUS. The Boy also decided to "tackle Mum" in front of this little guy's family. They found it quite humorous.

Unfortunately, this new friend was just diagnosed with ALL (acute lymphocytic leukemia) and his family is new to the cancer family journey. They don't live too close to the hospital, so we have extended the offer for help with whatever they might need since we're so close.

Tomorrow, I am substitute-teaching for my middle school science teacher. Should be a good time.