Things always happen for a reason

It's just been one of those weekends. You know, the ones where nothing ever happens like it's supposed to.

I was hoping that at least one of my friends would be able to make it up and hang out this weekend because Bay City is just such a cool place to be for the 4th. Well, none of them could but that must have happened for a reason. Thursday and Friday, I went down to the park with my family we watched the lil shows of fireworks, the 15 minute ones. Those were cool.

Then yesterday happened. Grandma called at 9am, Uncle Tom had been vomiting and in pain since 6am. They were on their way to Covenant Med Express. 11am comes around, they're sitting in Covenant's ER because Med Express doesn't have lab services on the weekend. The doctor's weren't sure what it was because he had groin pain. CT occurs around 3pm, the result: kidney stone! A nice 2mm one at that, which is small enough for him to pass, so they decide to send him home. Doc leaves the exam room and minutes later Uncle Tom starts puking again, this time it's the dye from CT scan. So they give him an anti-nausea shot straight into his IV (which it took the nursing staff 7 tries to start) and then some pain med that starts with a T and Dilauded (or however you spell it). Five minutes later, he's snoring. At that point they decided to keep him overnight in observation. This is at 4pm. A few resident's took their observations (one was on her first day of residency and was from India and went to med school in Texas, boy was she hard to understand). Now we got there around 1:30-2ish and figured that we'd be there for a few hours and they'd either send him home or admit him. Well, by 7pm, he still didn't have a bed. I was getting anxious because I wanted to get back home to see the fireworks because it was going to be the best show ever. By 8pm, he still didn't have a bed, I was bored as hell, and just couldn't stay there anymore because there was no sign of a bed any time soon. So I left mom there with grandma and uncle Tom and left for home. I got home and dad and I left for the fireworks (he didn't want me going down to the park on my own). Luckily we were able to get a decent parking spot at my neighbor's daughter's house since everyone and their brother goes to the Bay City fireworks.

Dad and I got settled in on the hill at about 9:30. At quarter to ten, two F-18 hornet's made their prep flyover. That was cool in itself. But at 10:01 they went back over the park, just 500 ft above the bridge and lit their afterburners before going vertical into the sky. Then we had an Army General read off the names of all fallen Michigan soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Then was the cool part. In less than 60 seconds they shot off 1,000 4-inch mortars into the sky. That kicked ass. Then started the rest of the 45 minute show. I swear it was like ROTK, you thought that it would be over 4 times before they ended it. For the grand finale they launched gold fireworks from both sides of the river and it formed an arch over the river. It looked SO cool. After the show was over Dad and I went over to the carnival side and bought 3 elephant ears and took those home so that mom could enjoy one too. She got back into town about 10 and watched the high fireworks from a church parking lot since she knew that she wouldn't get down into the park that late. Dad and I got home a little after 12, we hung out with the neighbors for a bit and let traffic clear some before we braved the roads.

This morning when dad woke me up for church I was so out of it that I didn't even know what day and time it was, I was just so tired still. I could barely stay awake through Mass. Got home from church and laid down for a bit before mom and I were going to head up to the hospital. We got ready to go around 1 and Uncle Tom called and said not to come up because he was being discharged (yay!). So I did a few things around the house and just relaxed. Mom had brought Uncle Tom's car home last night so around 3 we were going to leave for Saginaw and take it back home and see how he was doing at home. Well, that just wasn't meant to be. Grandma called a little after 3 and the internal medicine doc decided that uncle Tom couldn't go home because his blood pressure was still majorly high. So that changed our plans.

Mom and I rushed around Bay City and Saginaw and made him a care package with some of his favorite candy, a teddy bear, and a couple of mylar baloons. Got up to the hospital about 5ish and got him walking around some to help the stone pass easier. He ordered dinner around 6ish and so mom and I took grandma to go get something to eat. We got back to the hospital a little after 7 and uncle Tom had eaten but wasn't feeling quite so hot then so we walked up and down the hall some with him and tried to get him feeling better before we left at around 8:30.

And now, I'm just plain worn out. What a weekend...