If you follow both @novysan and I on Twitter, you might have seen these two tweets this week.
First, on Monday:
And then today:
So, Monday morning, well before sunrise, NovySan got sick. Really, really sick. Sick like I’ve never seen him sick. I was worried enough to make him go to Urgent Care, and they were worried enough to make him go to the ER – where they stared at him for a couple of hours and finally sent us home. He got two liters of fluid in Urgent Care, two more at the hospital, and still has adhesive residue on his arms and chest from the IVs and EKG.
He was almost back to normal on Tuesday, and sitting next to me working when my phone rang. “Hi, Chia,” said the voice on the other end. “You don’t know me, but I’m a friend of your Dad’s.”
“Oh, shit,” I thought.
If I were to tell you that my Dad is a semi-retired college professor who keeps horses, you might have an image of him, but I can assure you it wouldn’t be correct. If I told you he finished the Tevis Cup, a famously brutal 100-mile horse race, last year, you might come closer. If I told you that NovySan describes him as being made of rebar and beef jerky, you’d come closer still.
And if you’re thinking that what I’m about to describe is a horse-related injury – you’d be right on the nose.
About a month ago, his horse spooked (probably at nothing at all), and he lost his seat. He clonked his head pretty good, but he wearing a helmet and didn’t think too much of it, even when the headaches started later. By the time one of the doctors he rides with brought him in for an exam, his brain had been bleeding for weeks. This was, I’ve been told, a good thing. Had he lost that much blood all at once, he wouldn’t have survived it.
He went in for surgery on Thursday. My brother and a bunch of his friends were at the hospital with him. I was at @voltagecoffee with @omgjulia, who very sweetly converted our impromptu writing date into an all-day distraction mission (and expanded it to include NovySan when he realized his daughter was graduating high school that same day, and he couldn’t be there). Voltage gave way to @muddycharlespub, and then to @CambridgeBrewer, by which time her partner @moss had joined us. As we started dinner, a text came in.
“They are closing up now… all is good.”
I’m so grateful to everyone who helped take care of us this week. We’ve been blessed with very good friends.
And I do not ever need such a dramatic reminder of that, ever, ever again.
