What Now

CONCLUSION

After all of the mess it took for me to get there, the actual visit was great! I mean, of course Sara was sick most of the time I was there, which sucked, but I enjoyed my visit. I told her that I knew I was ugly, but she didn’t have to throw up every time she saw me. : ) Hmmmm, now that I think of it, she didn’t disagree with me. Evil heifer!

Monday I spent the day with her watching TV, except when her mom took me to Target to buy some clothes. I was literally wearing my pajamas because that was the only other clothes I had since my bag went AWOL. We rode across town on the elevated train and after Target we went to the mall, which the Target cashier swore was close (but she lied), and Gail and I hauled our giant shopping bags through a very posh shopping place. We were hot and thirsty by the time we made it to the restaurant we were looking for. It was an Italian place with very wonderful food. After that we stopped by The Cheesecake Factory and got some goodies to take back to Sara and went back to the Transplant House. I wanted to take a shower and change into some of the clothes I had bought so that I wouldn’t still be in my pajamas, and I met Gail and Sara in the hospital room. Sara introduced me to the wonderful world of “Housewives of Orange County” and “The Hills” as well as some weird show about a guy who travels all over the world and eats disgusting food. We had to turn that last one off because even though Sara is the one who is constantly nauseated, I am the one who almost threw up. The man ate ants and testicles, for the love of Pete! While at Target, I went to the dollar section and got all three of us some of those headbands with the ears on them that little kids wear at Easter. I picked out lamb ears and Sara and I wore ours while we sat and watched TV. Sara forgot she had hers on, so when the docs and nurses came in and out, we got some strange looks. I could have reminded her she was wearing a wooly headband with ears on it, but I didn’t. I got a kick out of the looks. The funny thing was, no one ever mentioned them. They came in, asked how she was, and looked from her to me, me to her, and then they would leave. I found out the next day she had so completely forgotten she was wearing them that she slept in them! Heeheehee.

Tuesday was about the same, but Sara felt much more sick. I felt bad that I couldn’t do anything to help, but there was really nothing that could be done on my part without cracking her on the back of the head to knock her unconscious. I didn’t think she’d appreciate that anyways. In the middle of the afternoon I got a blinding headache, one of those that make me sick to my stomach, and I had to go back to the transplant house and lie down before Sara and I started doing Dueling Barf-o’s. Luckily I caught it before it got that far and slept for a couple of hours. When I went back, Sara had been to get scanned and once she came back, all three of us spent the next few hours talking and I got to tell Gail about the silly things Sara had done in High School. We talked until pretty late, and as far as I could tell, we all had a good time.

Wednesday when we went back to the hospital, Sara had been sick in the night and still felt fairly terrible. My ride called to say they were in the neighborhood already, and since I knew Sara was exhausted and probably completely tired of me by then, I said my goodbyes and went back to the airport. I checked about my bags again (still no dice) and then began my trip home. Everything went well from there on, the only bad thing being that the lady next to me dropped her carry on bag on my head while trying to get her cell phone out, but even that wasn’t a big deal.

I made it home by about 9:45 that night, Huntsville time, and couldn’t wait to get a big hug from Steve when he met me at the baggage claim.

Once again, the joke was on me.

My plane landed early, my husband was late. I can’t really blame him for thinking that I’d be later than planned after everything the airline had put me through. I was kind of pitiful sitting in the empty baggage claim area waiting for him, though. He finally got there, but I didn’t get a hug. I swear, one of these days I am going to have someone be excited to see me after I get off of a plane! It doesn’t even have to be Steve anymore! I give up!

He just took me home and after I had eaten dinner, I slept like the dead.

My journey had ended.