The Me They're Expecting

More CRPS hilarity.

I had my "evaluate and treat" first appointment with outpatient Occupational Therapy yesterday. Why?

Darling Readers, you really must follow along.  This blog is nothing if not one long complaint, studded with humorous illustrative anecdotes, spiced and spruced by the esoteric contributions of life in Marlinspike Hall, ancestral home of the Haddock family, and all situated in the Tête de Hergé (primarily the region west of the Lone Alp).

I've been dumped into the outpatient therapy division of Kaiser Permanente's HMO because about a week before my foot and leg decided to develop cellulitis, I woke one morning to find my right hand had turned into a claw.

Not to bore the More Dedicated Readers, here's the situation, upper-body-wise.  My left hand is functional but weak.  Mostly it is a great hand, friendly, compliant. However, the left arm ascends into sartrean nothingness, as I lack a shoulder joint on that side.  This limits the range of motion, and definitely any comfortable range of motion, in the arm, and the reach of the hand. Try washing the right side of your body with a left hand that won't reach your right arm.  It's hilarious.  It can function well within the confines of its reach, and can and does go beyond, usually incurring plenty of pain as a result, but immense satisfaction should my desired action succeed.

What comes to mind is the most recent valiant performance of that left side -- tossing what turned out to be a horribly excessive amount of kosher salt into a delicate one-pot wonder.

Ah, I stray.

The right shoulder is a prosthetic but only minimally painful, due to the ministrations of the most wonderful orthopedic surgeon on Earth.  I tend to forget the elbow reconstruction of some six or seven years ago -- also an excellent job, though the hardware is beginning to shift.

Shifting hardware.  Now that's a sensation.

I've had radial and ulnar palsies in that right hand in the past, and each time they just went away, like in a fairy tale.

The current claw has only gotten worse.

And was of minimal concern to every doctor, nurse, and housekeeping staffer I encountered, until a very sweet and knowledgeable OT made me a very personal splint while in the hospital.  She pegged it as CRPS, completely neurological, and one of those things that "just happens" with CRPS.

You go to bed with a functional hand and wake with a claw.

So the only advice was "wear the splint 2 hours on, 2 hours off, and sleep with a rolled up washcloth in the vise grip of your lobster-like appendage." Oh, and go see an outpatient OT.

The news yesterday was the same.

After I mentioned that my goal was a return to normal function, and to not hear that nasty phrase: "This is your new normal."

Five minutes into the evaluation, my goals were reiterated by the therapist, in spades, leading with: "It looks like this is your new normal.  Our goal is to keep it from getting worse..."

It went on and on.  She knew her stuff but was into reinventing the wheel, which would be fine, were that of benefit to me.  Lots of manipulation of both hands via various tests.

With the result that my pinky and ring finger on the LEFT hand are now curling, curling inward and responding with snarling and snarky pain when I insist that they function correctly.

Yesterday was Lumpy's birthday and so one call, made while he was out, consisted of me singing the requisite tune to his answering machine (yes, an answering machine), while the second call consisted of him pumping me for info about me.  The little I got from my dear brother was that he barely made it through Monday's classes, that the radiation has done nothing for his pain, and that he ended up buying the medication that his oncologist, pharmacist, nurses, and insurance helpmates could not manage to have correctly approved, filled, and paid for in over a month.

We shared a moment of tired awe.

He's brilliantly brave, struggling to make his voice vibrant long enough to get through the birthday calls.  No mention of my gift, so that was a bust.  I suck at gift-giving, so there's no harm, no foul.  I just wish that this year, of all years, I might have gotten it right.

I don't think I can lose him.

Totally different sort of despair than losing hands, losing a precious friend, mentor, sibling. He still needs to teach me how to snap my fingers correctly, and how to spit.  I want to play one more game of hide-and-seek, where I hide for hours, and emerge to find that he left for baseball practice hours ago. Malted milk balls galore, water polo for hours, musicology 101, and half-court tennis matches. Agreement that there will always be a need and a coziness in literary history, no matter the lit crit trends.

Figuring the day had not slashed at me quite enough, I made other calls -- the call to Lumpy having been desired, just unexpectedly... hard.  I checked in with the Sister-Unit, who was, of course, in a bookstore.  The conversation acquired that whispering-in-a-library quality and bored her, apparently, as I got a sudden "gotta go, hang in there, and stay tuned!"

It could be that she was busy.  Maybe she found an interesting book, or met up with a beloved fellow bookworm. Her birthday is day after tomorrow.

She and Lumpy are step-siblings, born three days apart.  My brother was born in London, my stepsister in North Carolina.  Occasionally, my stepmom and those two would mess with school registrars' minds.

"Twins?" they would hesitantly suggest.

Stepmom would lay out the geographies of their births, as her son and daughter, clearly fraternal as heck if twins, stood looking twinly.  Then she'd deliver the coup de grâce:

"Longest three days of my life."

Anyway.  Sister-Unit relayed that stepmom had fallen, but was okay, and that her momentous day -- a move into Assisted Living -- was penciled in for next Thursday. Stepmom, all 85 pounds of her, has turned into a striking viper at the mention of it.  The gift of short term memory loss at least shortens the period of hissing and tongue-flicking, but no one envies Sister-Unit and her Studly Partner their task next week.

It is sad, but the heart hardens over what must be.
Or mine has.
What a terrible admission.

Lastly, I called the BioMom Unit. Everything in me wanted to scream at her that her son was being laid low by vicious cancer and that I resented being born, but instead we talked, at length and with considerable comedy, about how her dead husband is cheating on her -- but only with pregnant women.  He was an Ob/Gyn. She was a hoot.

Usually, I try to gently reorient her.

Not yesterday.  Within her concocted world, she made perfect sense.  So I reminded her how much her husband loved her, and she rested easily in that.

I cannot slough off more work on Fred, with the feeble excuse of having no hands.  This cannot be my "new normal."

I've been thinking of dear Lumpy all day -- office hours, two classes, radiation, and an infusion of chemotherapy.

Convinced that my new normal reeks of my continued uselessness.

Time for the splint!  Time to check on The Fredster. Time to extract the "poor me" from other sentient beings' beings. If they ever do want or need me, this is not the me they're expecting.

as it was in the beginning... now the thumb is a quivering
quibbling digit.  all praise the mighty index finger!

© 2013 L. Ryan

Sunday Phone Calls: When Even Death is Funny

It's been a rough week, the kind where the best communication turns out to be reminding the people whom you love that you do, indeed, love them.  It makes for a shorter phone call, a blink-of-an-eye visit, and calls for just a tiny greeting card, though the cost of postage does not change.

Growing up, Sunday was the day for obligatory phone calls to family members living far, far away.  Granted, it was usually my immediate family that bore the responsibility for the distance issue.  We tended to be overseas, or living somewhere inaccessible to even those relatives who enjoyed travel.  Or I could be honest and say that no one really gave a crap, and the Sunday telephone ritual was just another thing to check off the list.

I managed three calls today.

Those Dear Readers who've been with me a while know that my use of the telephone is, itself, miraculous, as I find it the least endearing mode of communication of the many modes we have in this technological age.

For instance, Grader Boob, one of my two beloved Brother-Units, is now so weak that his voice does not carry efficiently to the telephone receiver.  He prefers "Lumpy" now to GB, but that's just trivia.  And a lie. He has no sense of humor discernible any longer, cancer's gift, pain's offering.  As for his voice, part of it is also, I am guessing, change brought about by impingement of various nerves by those nefarious Lumps about which we so want to joke.

He could out grim the Grim Reaper, and will, I hope. Grumpy Lumpy seems to be so intensely in a snit because his life has been destroyed in what must feel like an overnight happening, despite what hindsight now reveals as a vine-like underground creep over a decade, culminating in Kudzu's blazing speed once that first tendril found the sun.

His pain is unimaginable, even to me, the Queen of Pain. His perennial lack of social graces, once endearing, now has the edge of a feudal samurai sword, his made to accommodate one-handed lunges. It's just a matter, really, of a shorter grip.  Maybe a tanto grip with a freaking 4-5 foot ōdachi blade.  I carry a small antique tanto in my obi, as do all my female friends.  Bianca Castafiore, we all know, is never without her 06 F.A.S.T. from Gerber.  She swears by the G-10 handle.  In a nod toward beauty, my dagger handle is a subtle, but distinctive, teal-green silk cord and black samé -- ray skin -- topped with a black iron tsuba bearing a dragonfly motif.

None of us bother with saya, or scabbards. Marlinspike Hall's women are famous for our mastery and obsession with fabrics of incredible tensile strength, and their artistic draping, which most men assume comes from a lurid obsession with shiny, metallic, decorative threading.  Yes, we live for the glint of reinforced brocade on a clear, hot summer day.

"The effect is elegant and rich without becoming fussy. "

Lumpy's issue is the same problem that turned the ōdachi into a ceremonial thing, a spiritual weapon.  The answer, I think, to the obstacle of how to carry his very particular sword, and successfully draw it, lies in providing him with a trusty steed, though that might attract undue attention as he canters about the hallways of higher learning. Better might be an unobtrusive trusty sidekick.  Like a dedicated sister in a wheelchair. I could pass off six feet of sword as a stylized assistive mobility device, no problem.  Who better to have his blessèd back?  Plus, I can help with any grading duties, and be the one to chuck chalk at any undergraduates who dare nap during class.

And here you thought a samurai sword reference was to end in its metaphorical stage! We are a knife-wielding clan, we are.  You should see some of Fred's knives. His nonchalant explanation for seemingly artless features -- a notch here, an odd finish to the metal, a strange blunt affect -- can chill my blood. He and Abbot Truffatore do not so much resemble Boy Scouts comparing five-tooled pocketknives as handy camping tools when they extricate their shiny toys from humble scabbards and lay them on felt-covered table tops as they seem men under the ancient enchantment of war.

So, though weak in body and voice, this Brother-Unit remains obstinately militarized, and determined to try teaching this semester -- two courses in person and one as an internet prof.  I want him to succeed;  I know he won't.  And so pardon my fantasy of squiring him à la Sancho Panza, ready, in the end, to do wheelies and behead the archaic administrators who failed him, impale the students who worked him into weakness, slash the desks and podia that his university maintained instead of providing health care for those who sat and leaned there.

I hate these Sunday calls.

And then there was the dear sister, caring for a waning mother, blindly navigating the end-of-life barriers thrown in their way by that same health care system that has failed the rest of this fucked-up family.  Mom is unaware of the obstacles she dodges, her memory gone, or maybe that stealthy faculty forces her to relive each trouble more than is useful.  The Sister-Unit has become a faithful nurse, tending three bed sores, feeding a weak 81-pound matriarch.  Her partner has leukemia -- that's some punchline, eh?  He is doing well, however, though they are smartly close-mouthed about it.  He's a Prince, a Peach, a Pear, which is the highest accolade of my people.

I did not even consider asking to speak to Mom.  In my mind, likely as confused as hers, I am an abstract construct to her.  The child who caused so much trouble.  The child who said "thanks, but no thanks" some 24 years ago, and by letter, not phone.  I'd had enough, enough doublespeak, enough lies, enough suppression, oppression.  I was careful to express my real gratitude for the raising, for the good times, for the afternoon on the sailboat, for the tea and toast, for the tips on dumping drinks into potted plants at cocktail parties, and the admonitions to stand up straight and be proud of my height.

She taught the art of thank-you notes, of indexing social debts (keeping a tit-for-tat list of Christmas card recipients and a neat list of who attended what party and what outfit she had worn to each). She taught the power of obligation, the complexities of generations.  She was, too, a teacher. Of little ones, but they are the most precious of all.  I did a brief stint as a substitute in a second grade classroom and was more terrified than when I faced a room full of savvy, educated, bright-as-the-moon, inquisitive young men and women.  It was Mom's influence that tainted my university teaching with the same urge to protect and defend that comes so naturally on behalf of six-year-olds.  (Sometimes that was a problem.)

I wished the Sister-Unit good courage and good luck, as she fights for some semblance of coordinated care, hires nurses, and deals with an overfed dog now prone to urinary incontinence.  Oh, and a doctor who opines only the glaringly obvious and does not return her polite phone calls.  It's not his mother, what does he care?  Oh, I take that back.  He's perfectly competent.  There's nothing to do but muddle through.

The other mother, the biological Mother-Unit?  I don't call, or not often, and cannot face it today.  She's likely to make a perfunctory inquiry about her first set of boys, and I cannot spit out the perfunctory lies, not today.  Maybe I should call, but have ready the most non-perfunctory of retorts.  "Lumpy? After winning Wimbledon, he took a brief rest in Monte Carlo -- you know what a gamer he is -- before sporting the yellow jersey on the Tour.  Right now, he's gearing up for a stint as Compositional Inquisitor.  He gets to wear flowing robes and a pouffy hat, Ma.  Isn't that grand?"

Of the other sweet Brother-Unit, I could just wow her with the truth, but her dementia, like her normal state, won't admit too much of the stuff.  So I'd say something like: "He still proudly marches to the beat of his own drum and radiates compassion and equanimity into the wavelengths of the universe, Ma, just like I told you last time."

The third call?  To an evangelical busybody who delights in telling me what to do and then, in undermining my efforts.  This week she taught me a valuable lesson about trust, as in:  Don't do it.  So the third call was harsh but easy. Her proselytizing had brought her no Godly approbation, just the stench of manure spread on burning sulfur. That may be overstating the matter.  I'll let you know.

How am I?  How do you think?  I'm in terrible physical pain, my right hand and foot have seceded from the union, I cannot eat, barely drink, sleep in fits, spasm at the whim of invisible cattle prods, and am returned to the days of fever and sweats, lethargy. Despite that, I take my cue from my siblings, a hardy bunch, smart enough to know that the only way through is through. That there is still music, and that even death is funny.

I cannot bear much more of this, but we all know I will.  My piddling troubles are as nothing. I still recognize beauty and humor -- but they must be either exquisite or of admirable kitsch.




© 2013 L. Ryan

Technology May Kill Us. Or Not.

REPOST from 2012 -- No need to explain why!


I just had one of those belly-shaking, pew-rocking laugh attacks.  Completely out of the blue.

insane laughter wave
"actor laughing insanely. large diaphragm capacitor microphone direct to sound forge"

Technology is, therefore, good for something.

1.  Earlier today, The Fredster and I were trying to enter the formidable Network Key into our wifi recovery program.  Once we figured out where it was hiding, we each took turns writing it down.  Why?  Because he had a go at it and failed and the yelling began.  I hate the yelling.  So I jotted it down and quietly gave it a go myself.  Soon enough, I was screeching.  Then began The Great Discussion of the "O" versus the "0." At that point, we were on the phone with India.  India was no wiser on the issue but stayed on the phone with us for half an hour.  As I got ready to discard the 3rd-notice envelope and the dirty napkin we'd used for our number jotting, I noted discrepancies.  He had an "F" where I had a "4."  I had a "P" where he had a "5." Did I mention that I have glaucoma and cataracts?  So I put on a third pair of glasses and rechecked the Router-Lord-of-the-Universe Thingy.  First, I solved the O/0 problem.  That helped a lot right there.  Then I replaced the F and the P.  Sneeked past the internet-deprived Fred who was beginning to have withdrawal symptoms.  And voilà: Take that, India.  Fred was happy, all was well.

2.  So I got online to check with UPS tracking on a package that should have been delivered Wednesday.
It appeared to have been sucked into a vortex between two tiny towns about 10 miles apart.  So I had a helpful online chat with a UPS representative.  She solved the problem by referring me back to the sender, Best Buy, which made no sense, so I promptly did it.  Best Buy initiated an inquiry that will take 3-8 days. "Okie-dokie, then. Uff da to ya!" said I, in my best Fargo. Then I filed a report online with UPS.  I am happy to report that all of this consumer proactivism has had the following result:  the UPS online tracking site now reads. "Your package has experienced an exception."

3.  Earlier this week, my half-sister notified me, via the much hated Facebook, that my mother-unit had an appointment with a neurologist to be tested for Alzheimer's. Ever the polite one, I inquired today as to the outcome. I have a weird fear of Alzheimer's as it was the basic cause of death for both my step-grandmother and my stepfather, and my stepmother is showing ominous signs.

I'll give you a minute. 

[toe tap, toe tap, toe tap]

Got it?

Water has been thicker than blood for most of my life, and I still have to research basic kinship terms.  "Nephew, cousin, uncle," and then the linguistic peripherals, "thrice-removed, demi-, half-, step, second, great, long lost..." and the ultra-confusing "in-law, partner, boyfriend, girlfriend, old family friend [wink::wink]." 

Much easier to remember?  Friend / Not-Friend. Water? It quenches thirst like nobody's business and is the most powerful force in the world.

Anyway, the upshot is that Mother never made it to the neurologist.  As she was getting ready, her implanted, top-of-the-line defibrillator started going off. And off. And off.

And by "as she was getting ready," this incredible half-sister further clarified the ever-shifting maternal apocrypha this way: she meant that the sweet mother-unit was in the bath tub. Or shower.

Now, these good kin live in a small town, where, apparently, a favored pastime is listening to emergency scanners -- and my half-sister began getting phone calls at her work place before the ambulance even arrived at our Mother's home, site of this most terrible technological attack..They got her to the hospital, where they repositioned the leads... and gave her some pills to keep the defibrillator from working.  She is okay, but barely.

At a loss for words, I said The Standard, trained in it by this somewhat overwhelming sibling.

Bless her heart.  
I'll pray for her.

And then, a few hours later, I started laughing.

Buddy, the Outrageously Large Baby Maine Coon cat, chewed through the wiring of my brand new heating pad, and for dessert, demolished the Wii Remote. I had planned to reduce the day's stress with a hot game of tennis doubles for bedridden gimps.

Mwa ha ha!

The Universe's message for me today?

"You are experiencing an exception..."

Buddy and his, "What?" Look of Innocence

Family Ties

The Rorschach test to the left is an MRI showing acute pancreatitis. I thought we'd try something new, graphics-wise!


Good morning, good Sunday morning. I hope to take care of some housekeeping today, both in terms of the schtuff accumulated within the living quarters here in Marlinspike Hall, deep, deep in the Tête de Hergé, as well as here on elle est belle la seine la seine elle est belle.

It's been not so much a somber time lately as nerve-wracked. The Mother-Unit is in the Intensive Care Unit, but -- gladly! -- she is much improved. That's what can happen when doctors actually support their diagnoses with test results -- those wacky medicos!

She lives in a small town. Her late husband, a darling of a man, was a prominent physician there for over 30 years. Last year, she did what people her age tend to do, and fell, breaking her hip. She had a THR that went well, although she came out of it depressed and resistant to things like physical therapy and... effort.

Her family began to hear all her complaints through that filter, as did her doctors. She was Dr. X's wife, a depressive hypochondriacal woman with a few cardiac issues...

About 4 months ago, she began to consistently complain of pain that seemed to be centered in the small of her back, though it also took day trips, popping up as a pain under her ribs, occasionally also hanging out in her side.

The doctors in her town never drew blood, never applied any differential diagnoses, those wacky old white men! (That's a mere statement of fact; I positively adore most wacky old white men.) She was Dr. X's wife, post THR, a depressive hypochondriacal woman...

I do believe they thought she was drug-seeking, as she began coming home from appointments loaded down with prescription muscle relaxants, pain killers, and such. Like any good doctor's widow, post THR, and depressively hypochondriacal, she began playing that well known game of taking one's medication precisely as described and then passing out, which lead to incidents of falling down -- *that* kind of manipulative trickery common to doctor's wives, post-THR and so on and so forth.

She was ordered to resume physical therapy, but the witch just continued to complain and complain about pain, resisting all the allied-health personnel and their demands that she swim, walk, and train for an upcoming mini-marathon. How rude!

Her daughter, my sister, an awesome woman, serves as her dominated caretaker. Truth be told? My Mother-Unit treats my sister like crap, always has, and sadly, always will. For her part, my sister has developed a superbly wicked sense of humor. She is also a very kind person, and she listens, she observes. Much in the way one would hope the physicians would.

She played the role of Worried Adult Child and dragged Mommy Dear back to each doctor, with the result that more physical therapy was prescribed, as well as hints that a chiropractor might prove useful. Prescription pads were waved, more pills purchased, though this go-round, my sister served as drug distributer -- i.e., there were to be no more trips to the hard floor due to overmedication.

They saw the chiropractor. He did whatever it is they do, and suggested... physical therapy.

It was about then that My Helpful Self entered the picture, all foul-mouthed and presumptive.

My main suggestion was to get the heck out of Small Town Dodge, since those doctors still saw her late husband and the obéissance they owed him instead of an elderly woman with a constellation of symptoms -- pain, fatigue, fevers, nausea, and increasing unsteadiness. Of course, she also remained consistently depressed, neurotic, and (a real feat when *actually* ill) hypochondriacal! There are, after all, Family Standards to uphold.

The only Big City referral she was able to get from her Small Town doctors was one to an orthopedist, formerly of That Same Small Town, and a Great Friend of her Dead Husband.

I began to have the proverbial cow, even though this latest physician did take a daring step outside the box and diagnosed her with a kidney infection (again, without testing), and wrote for antibiotics.

That seemed reasonable enough, and we all crossed our arms in satisfaction and stared at The Patient, waiting for the announcement that she felt Better.



[Don't ask me about These Bizarre Capitalizations. I dunno, it's mildly amusing, mebbe? Yes, I *am* easily amused! However did you know?]

Another month went by... and The Patient did indeed change. She complained less, but did not "do" any more in terms of activity, staying mostly in bed. She began to resemble one of those old women who... fade away.

It happens so subtly, so ineluctably.

Then, blessed be, something *happened*, intersecting this long line of mushy non-events with particularity.

She spiked a terrible fever, the pain worstened, and she grabbed the phone to call SuperSis with the complaint that she was cold, damn it! Oh, yeah, it was 3 am.

What an attention seeker, My Mother-Unit!

So SuperSis rushed over there, calling for assistance from her Brother-Unit, and they descended upon the Old Woman.

As an emergency patient, Good Ol' Mom was unknown to the physician on call in Hicksville. So he ordered labs, the crazy guy! It was the middle of the night, he could have cared less who she was, who her Dead Husband was, he only saw her. Hooray! Hooray! Hooray for The Physician On Call! (Now if only we could have arranged for Nurse K to be on duty...)

When the results began to trickle in, the ED doc decided she needed more help than they were able to provide in Podunk Village, and off she went, by ambulance, to The Big City Hospital, where she was promptly admitted to the ICU.

She had a pretty awful case of pancreatitis, also considerable liver dysfunction, a UTI, a messed up gall bladder, and was septic.


It's been three days now, and Super Sis and her Drop-the-Hammer Brother report that the Mother-Unit feels much better, has even walked some, and feels hardly any pain. Of course, appropriately titered pain meds probably account for some of that, also the i.v. antibiotics.

What is that called? Hmm. It escapes me. Wait! I remember! T.R.E.A.T.M.E.N.T.

Surgery is being contemplated, which involves her biggest complaint, at the moment: she wants to eat, but is being kept NPO. We're thrilled that she can think of nothing else about which to kvetch.

So that's her story, in this up-to-the-moment installment.

For me, it calls up My Issues. At least, it did. I no longer give a Royal Hoot. So I end up on the phone with people who swear (on the Bible!) that they used to babysit me when I was but a knee-highed grasshopper... who want to know if I remember them taking me to the beach when I was 3 years old... who ask after my Brother-Units as if they really cared. The swiftest way to cross me is to FAIL one of my Brother-Units.

One swears she is my aunt, another swears to be an uncle. A good many claim to know me and my Brother-Units, intimately, and any protestation of the fact (as in, "but I don't know you from Adam, from Eve!") only engenders an odd puffing of the cheeks and mumblymumbliness.

I become perilously close to asking where they were when Tumbleweed was a child alone, homeless, Lost in Amerika? I risk demanding how they could have allowed Grader Boob to lose faith in everything except The Literary Canon? I almost wonder how they managed to forget about me, too, but almost, as has been noted, does not count.

If I need advice about anything, it is about my Brother-Units and whether or not I should inform them that she's not doing well. Tumbleweed would take it as received information, much as a large democratic congress accepts the findings of its many committees. I cannot know his procedural mind, his memory, his hopes, his regrets. Grader Boob, lui, has admonished me many times, already, in this short life: do not speak of x, of y, of z, do not speak of him, of her. He is so badly hurt, forever injured.

I think I will -- in a short declarative sentence that also reassures each one that his privacy has not been imperiled. Of course, this notification must be done with its own sort of Fire Wall in place, as one of Grader Boob's many prohibitions is that he wants nothing to do with Brother Tumbleweed.

It's enough to drive a sister batty.

Later today, I am going to be a Brave Daughter and actually attempt to speak with the Mother-Unit on the phone.

Maybe. Maybe not. I really don't feel very brave, nor very daughter-ish. All the old feelings of abandonment are bubbling with new life.

The inmates of Marlinspike Hall all wish her well and are proud of my Half-Siblings for such expert handling of an emergency -- and for getting her the hell out of Small Town Dodge. [No offense to small towns.]