Danger Will Robinson

Why do people who would never encourage you to neglect yourself ignore their own illnesses to the point of disaster?  I went to the gym and when I came back my good friend Nancy called sounding weak and not knowing what to do.  She is very, very heavy and diabetic, no feeling in her feet.  She woke up with a large, open wound in her foot.  She didn't want to wake her nephew next door to drive her and she wanted me to tell her she could drive herself.  I said "no." She lives about 4 hours from me so I could't drive her either so I resorted to blackmail.  I thought I could get off the phone and start calling people myself.  It took awhile to persuade her to wake him and convince her this really is an emergency and she should go straight to the hospital.  She had her nephew drive her to the doctor's office instead of the hospital, so much for my powers of persuasion.  Fortunately it's only five more minutes to the hospital.  The MD had her admitted immediately.  She could lose a leg because she's been ignoring this for a couple of weeks.  This is a smart woman with a math degree from Rice University and she worked at for NASA in their early days.  She is kind-hearted and a rescuer of those in trouble, but not herself.  I called her at the hospital and she told me she had kept this difficulty to herself because she's felt so ill she hadn't been able to clean the house, do the dishes, or do the laundry and was embarrassed to let anyone in.  She wasn't eating because she couldn't make it to the grocery.  She lives alone in the middle of a couple of acres with her dog.  She is just barely mobile.  Not good.  She may not be able to keep living there alone.  I cannot see where this is going. Or maybe I can, I just hope not.

Next my son Dave called with the news his uncle Geir, who has pancreatic cancer is back in the hospital, and probably will not make it to the early birthday party planned for him this coming Saturday.  So both sons and I are making a dash for Seattle tomorrow hoping to see him once more.  God only knows if we will.  Every time my mother ended up in the hospital I raced the 300 miles to see her only to have her die when I had got back home.  That's the way of it, you can't plan it or beat yourself up over it.  Families are so spread out, we are lucky we are within 300 miles of each other.

Geir was only about 9 or 10 when I first met him. I was in college and dating his brother whom I later married.  He was little blond, cherubic kid.  The whole family had come from Norway to this country resettling finally in Seattle attracted it's coastal location as well as the Nordic community of fishermen, Norwegians and Swedes.  Maybe not the Swedes so much ;-).  I remember him collecting golf balls at a nearby golf course for pin money and later caddying.  He went to the University of Washington and became an engineer and later turned himself into a math teacher in a farm community in Eastern Washington in order to serve others as he believed his faith led him to do.  Seems God does scoop up the good ones.