On Saturday night, for the first night in about a week, I took my sleeping medication. I had a blissful night of sleep, about 10 hours. I woke up feeling pretty good... until I looked at my phone. Three missed calls from people who never call me (they usually text) and a flurry of texts. Uh oh. Come to find out, a friend had to go to the ER on the last evening of the conference. I'm actually surprised more folks don't have to go in, but she was the second (and I think last) that had to go, at least of the deficients I know.
I get up at around 8:30, see all this stuff, hop in the shower, throw my things into my suitcase, then hurry over to the University of Maryland Emergency Department, where they were keeping my friend for observation. I'm really thankful I got over there when I did to help her explain things to doctors, etc, because it's really difficult to explain when benadryl has rendered you nearly unconscious and makes it impossible to focus. I was also able to use some of my lung knowledge gained by looking at scan slides to help explain to the docs what they were seeing with N's scans. That was good.
I was certainly glad to be there to help her out, but it also set off some personal alarms with me. Perhaps my own fears of traveling alone are more warranted than I had previously thought. It's a little scary to see someone so close to you in age be in such need of assistance. I mean, we were absolutely 100% there to help her, but I wonder what would have happened if it had been me, alone, several hundred miles from home. As much as I would like to think I'm not limited by CVID, I really am in some very important ways. This demonstrates more than ever that I need a travel buddy always. I'm grateful that B was there on the other end to help me get my things out of the hotel and checked out and all of that, but I'm really trying to evaluate the plans I have in place and the ease with which my doctors can be contacted. It matters more than I would like.
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