Trouble

I've spent the last 24 hours or so trying hard not to worry about my mother-in-law.

She's in ICU with sepsis, the result of a kidney infection left untreated. She's diabetic, and although no one has said this, I think her diabetes combined with recurring kidney stones ultimately led to this infection which has now spread to her bloodstream.

We got a call yesterday morning form my sister-in-law to let us know and have been in wait, pray, and see mode ever since.

I'm terrified. She's like a mother to me. I love her. I can't imagine what it would do to Scott to lose his mom, to my sons to lose the grandmother they adore. Beckett walks around the house asking for her; gets out my cell phone and pretends he's calling her or asks me to call her so he can talk to her.

72 hours. That's how long the doctor said it could take for the antibiotic to work. And I can't help but wonder if a small city doctor has the resources and the knowledge a doctor at a major medical facility in a large city would. Is that weird?

My mother died of sepsis in a small town hospital. I didn't even know what it was when they told me she had it. Today, I have a general idea of exactly what the doctor should be doing thanks to Google. Of course, I'm not there to ask all the questions and I think I pissed my brother-in-law off or he just thinks I'm a freak because I sent him a link to the Surviving Sepsis Campaign's guidelines for treating sepsis and asked him to discuss it with the doctor. I guess my attitude is that I may piss off the doctor, but what if I piss her off and she reconsiders her course of action and my loved one lives as a result. It would be worth it.

I'm rambling. Thankfully, I've had lots of distractions today with the boys.

I think I'll turn in now, say a few prayers, and believe that when I awake tomorrow she'll be better.

Behind the Wall of Sleep

I have slept more soundly in the last 48 hours than I have in months. Even last weekend in NY I couldn't sleep because I was worried about being late for things and it was loud and the hotel room was tiny which kind of stressed me out.

Here, in the capacious and stylishly adorned Chapel HIll hotel, I can spread out, relax, and sleep like a log. And I have.

Still, on Friday morning, I was awake at 5 a.m., worried that Brendan would be late for the Student of the Month breakfast at his school. He's been anxious about it all week and I absorbed his anxiety. After going back to sleep for an hour and a half, I awoke at 7:30 and unable to stop myself I called home to make sure they were out the door.

My darling mother-in-law told me they were at school at 7:19 a.m. She had both boys up and dressed and out the door, lunch packed, even remembering to take the whole watermelon she had cut up on Thursday morning before we left. The watermelon was our contribution to the end of year luau which also took place yesterday.

All is well at home. MeMe and the boys are having fun.

I guess I'll just go back to sleep for a while.

Goodbye Super Tuesday

Tuesday – Super Tuesday as it were – was something of an anniversary for me.

The very first time I got to vote was 20 years ago on the very first Super Tuesday ever. It was one of the happiest and most exciting days I can ever remember.

I walked from my house to the elementary school a block away after I got home from high school that afternoon.

I remember that it was raining, but still very bright outside. And it was warm.

I had been in that same gym in Vena Stuart Elementary School maybe a hundred times...going to vote with my grandmother, a die-hard Republican, and as a student there in kindergarten and third grade. I remember all the times I would go into the voting booth with my grandmother and tucked safely behind the navy blue curtain, watch her push buttons and finally pull the lever to cast her ballot. I remember the time a voting official told me I couldn't go in with my grandmother and she waved her cane in the air and gave him what for, telling him that I wouldn't affect her vote and that she wanted me to learn something about electing the people who control our lives.

The day I voted for the first time I felt as if I were carrying something valuable: my right to have a say. Something my grandmother would have had the opportunity to do when she was just one year older than I was when I voted. Born in 1901, she would have turned 19 the year women first gained the right to vote. I cannot imagine how thrilling that must have been.

And yet, I am thrilled each and every time I have the opportunity to exercise my right to vote. I was thrilled this week to learn that our regular babysitter, MD, was going to vote for the first time on Tuesday. I'm sure my glee over this knowledge seemed odd to her, but really, I was just thrilled to know that she had any interest in the political process. I am confident this girl had very strong reasons for casting her vote for a particular candidate and I am curious as to whom she would have voted for. I'm certain that she would not be the kind of woman who would simply vote as her parents tell her to vote. Just as in 1988, on a balmy Tuesday, I voted for the first time and broke with family tradition to cast my vote for my Tennessee homeboy Al Gore.

The first person to vote for a Democrat in my family in decades. And I've never looked back. If he were a candidate, I'd vote for AG in every election. My love and admiration for him has endured and only gotten stronger these 20 years. And even though I had a devil of a time deciding for whom to vote on this Super Tuesday, my love affair with the democratic (or federal republic) process has only gotten more passionate with time, and I was as excited to vote this year as I was that day way back in 1988.