Christmas, a Stone's Throw Away

While most holiday planning was finished, I was ready yesterday to start the week simply enjoying the coming festivities. The morning was to start with a breakfast and then I had company coming for an evening meal. The traditional Christmas dinner had been reduced in size to a Christmas soup supper and fewer people. Most of us were making the effort to see one younger gal who lives alone, who we wanted to visit with for the evening as our Christmas.



I had a small agenda for before the breakfast and was nearly dressed when I knew DH was in trouble shortly after dawn. He had danced around with kidney stones on one side for the last week, but this morning he was in great pain on the opposite side! No doubt about it, a trip to the hospital was in order. He said he could drive himself; what a joke! I called and gave my regrets at the breakfast, headed us for Urgent Care who sent us on the hospital. Not familiar with the temporary St. John’s, I drove to Freemans. DH was giving instructions on how to drive, where to turn (wrong!) and was delusional with pain. It began to rain complicating vision and nerves. I could have left him on a curbside without too much prompting!

A few hours and a couple of vials of morphine later (how I wished I had a share of that narcotic myself!), we eased out of the ER door into a pouring rain. My toes were like ice (why do they keep hospitals so cold?) and I was hungry. Meanwhile, DH’s pain had been replaced with morphine nausea and disorientation. Then we faced the pharmacy for a fistful of scripts. That stop was a story that I will spare you.

I was home in time to start the soup and to get the call from the young friend who needed the party the most. She was so sick she could not make it. She had missed work that day and was waiting on a doctor’s office to return her call for meds. (She thought she might die before the staff remembered her.) The others came and we had a simple supper of potato cheese soup, fruit cups with lemon yogurt sauce, crackers with a new Irish cheddar cheese (wonderful!), and cheesecake with strawberry sauce. After the meal, pots of Tulsi tea with orange and ginger and a pot of blueberry tea were a relaxing touch. The presentation was pretty though the meal was simple. The camera was loaded but my mind wasn’t functioning. We ate before a picture could be snapped!

One gal had to leave early for the Layman’s Service in town, and the party was over shortly afterwards. I was grateful the evening was fleeting as I was exhausted. Still I was grateful to have some of my friends gathered if only for a short while. Everyone was spent from the bustle of shopping, wrapping, and baking. We have promised ourselves a reprise of the evening in January when things are calmer!

DH is fine today; I could use one of those “dark winter’s naps” myself!