Craziness

The past two days have been cuh-razy between both work and family. This is going to be a long one, so settle in for a minute.

I left Tuesday morning for my conference in NOLA. The conference was for Mass Critical Incident Training, aka 'how healthcare facilities and organizations should react in a disaster.' They had some good speakers, but the main speaker I was interested in seeing was Dr. Anna Pou, who was the MD from Memorial Hospital that the Attorney General's office more or less tried to charge for murder for the way she handled patients in the aftermath of Katrina. If you have an hour and are interested, here's an article about it: The Deadly Choices at Memorial. It is a very long read, but it is soooo interesting.

But before Dr. Pou gave her presentation, a professor from LSU law school gave a presentation where he bascially called her a criminal, said she got away with murder and then said that Louisiana is wasting away and we are all stupid for living here. And then he left the room before she had a chance to give her rebuttal; kind of a cowardly move if you ask me, but whatever. Listening to her story was fascinating; I can't even imagine what it would have been like to be in that hospital with no electricity, water, or outside communication for days and days.

Anyway, I came back home that afternoon and got a call from Neal telling me that he had just been promoted, on his same rig, working his same schedule, so yay! Thank goodness he didn't take that last offer two weeks ago. As long as nothing else changes, he will actually be off for Christmas and Thanksgiving this year for the first time in forever. So moral of the story - trust your gut, people. He told me when they offered him that promotion on another rig a few weeks ago that something was telling him not to take it, and I'm so glad he didn't.

So yesterday I get up at 5 o'clock in the freaking morning to go to the gym, etc and when I get there one of the gym regulars tells me that my one of break light is out. (This shit only happens when Neal's gone.) He's so nice and offers to fix it for me this morning, but I ended up getting the building manager at work to fix it yesterday. I stop by my usual Starbucks on my way out, but there's a sign on the drive thru that says they're closed due to chemical spill (what the fuck? What kind of chemicals are they putting in my iced coffee?). I finally get across the bridge to the hotel where the conference is and get situated for the presentations. Then I get a text from Marilyn that says "call me now - 911". FUCK, what now?

Well, my father-in-law who is working in Pecos, TX was having some kind of cardiac event (he's already had two heart attacks) and is on his way to the local hospital. She is hysterical. So I'm texting and on and off the phone with her and Neal's sister for a few hours. Neal's sister books Marilyn a flight from Jackson, MS (nearest major airport) to Odessa which is where they have to airlift my father-in-law because there is, of course, no cardiologist in Pecos, TX. But Marilyn has to make it to Jackson in less than two hours. I call her to check on her on her way there and she is flying about 90 mph with her flashers on, laying on the horn, hysterically crying. And, this woman has not flown commerical in maybe 10 - 15 years. She has to change planes in Dallas and is scared to death.

She tells me that she is flying American Airlines, so I decided to try and reach someone at the AA counter at the Jackson airport to see if they can help her out because she has no idea what to do. Well, the bitch on the phone was so not helpful and said that there is absolutely no way to contact the AA counter at the aiport but that she hoped that everything worked out. Neal's sister stayed on the phone with the MIL the whole time talking her through the airport process and it ended up that the first person Marilyn asked a question to was actually on her flight. And I can tell you, without a doubt, that whenever Marilyn recounts this story to me, it will go something like, "The Good Lord put that person there to help me out" and honestly, she's probably right.

But she made it to Odessa and they're together and honestly I was more worried about her flying that I was about him in the hospital. I haven't gotten an update yet, but as far as I know he's okay and they're waiting on the cardiologist to check him out and let him know what's going on.

And all of this was happening in the midst of work drama. The office was calling me every 5 seconds yesterday because there were problems with this or that so I had to keep walking out of my emergency preparedness conference to deal with emergencies. So finally I just said 'fuck it' and left the conference to come back to work. But I didn't get out of the hotel without first hearing a 15 minute long story from the valet about how he's from Honduras and knows how to milk cows and would like to move back and open a fish farm but he thinks he'll open a chicken farm instead. Apparently chicken farms are easier to maintain than fish farms, incase you were wondering.

So, I am totally hoping for a nice, mild, uneventful day today. I just want to do some work, stay in the office most of the day, and then go to Target tonight after work. And please keep my FIL in your thoughts and I sweet Lord I hope he's okay. And that is all.