Work consumed my life. We had 400 college students in town for a convention. They started arriving Friday at 2 PM. By 5 PM, the hotel manager hunted us down, unhappy that so many of the students arrived with overflowing coolers and extra cases of beer. We had warned the hotel that could happen, way back a year ago when we booked the event, but they assured us that they had "experience" dealing with such guests. You would never have known it from the way the hotel staff acted that night. I found myself acting as referee between grown adults who obviously didn't know how to handle themselves. And I thought I only had to be referee for my family!
The rest of the weekend went much better. We were able to keep everything on schedule, and when the students left early Sunday morning, we all breathed a collective sigh of relief. We survived the weekend! In retrospect, it was worth all the hassles. We received many compliments on how well organized we were, and how much the students enjoyed the events we had planned. But we're all glad it's over!
My relief was short-lived. Late Sunday afternoon, my brother called to tell me he had taken my mom to the ER. She is due to have surgery on her rotator cuff in one week, which is worry enough, but now we don't know if that will proceed as planned or not. She has cellulitis in her foot and leg. They gave her a prescription for antibiotics and let her go home. When they arrived at the pharmacy to get her antibiotics, they were going to cost $3400!!!! Thirty-four HUNDRED dollars! For one antibiotic that the insurance would not cover!!! They went back to the ER and had her admitted; the hospital could treat her with that same antibiotic and it should (notice I say SHOULD) be covered by insurance since it was being administered by the doctor at the hospital. Talk about red tape.
Mom went home tonight; they don't know if this infection was caused by strep or staph infection. There is no sign of a bite as there was when she had this years ago and had to be packed in ice. It's mysterious. But at least they are optimistic that it won't postpone her shoulder surgery next week. Here's hoping everything goes well.
As if that wasn't enough, Daughter was forced to go back to doing the physical part of her job because other employees didn't show up at work. Her physical therapist didn't want her doing that for at least another two weeks. I struggle with how to cope with this with her. She had knee surgery the week before Thanksgiving. I know she hurts - I know her knee swells and bothers her, and I'm sorry - I wish I could fix it. But it frustrates me to no end that she complains about how much it hurts and yet she won't do her exercises to strengthen it, like she was told to do from the start. She was convinced those exercises the doctor gave her didn't do anything. She did them ONCE!!! No, they aren't going to work if you only do them once. She prefers Physical Therapy over working out at home or the gym. But I had a news flash for her - Physical Therapy costs money. I'm not paying for it when she doesn't do what they tell her to do anyway. GGGRRR... I have to bite my tongue, and believe me, it won't be long before I bite right through if this continues!!!
