Back in the Saddle

Back in the day, I would go out partying with my girlfriends until the wee hours of the morning and go to work the next day barely missing a beat. Flash forward 20 years: not quite so agile. Friday night I pulled a sober, working, all nighter (again) and just today, six days later, I'm finally feeling okay.

I went through much of the weekend in a coma-like stupor. At a party for my next door neighbor's 40th birthday, I kept drinking Coke -- which I never drink -- just to stay awake. I was hoping to hang with my brother who was in town just for one night but my overly caffeinated body and I promptly fell asleep. Thankfully he ran errands with me the next day (that's what friends are for) and we had a nice lunch together before my much needed Resiliency workshop at Physikos with my beloved Body-Mind Centering teacher.

Yesterday, I popped a million aspirin before coming home on time for the hubby's birthday. (Kudos to me!) I brought him a partially melted ice cream cake (that I buried in a snow bank outside my window at work as a poorly executed, preventative measure) and, per Son #2's whispered request to me during dinner the night before, a six-pack of Stella Artois. My eight year old knows him better than I apparently. When asked how he knew what to get daddy, he responded that he overheard him saying how much he liked that brand at Christmastime. Yes, he not only listened, he remembered. Note to self.

So in the midst of my complaints about my headaches, broken foot (crushed when Son #1 knelt on it),  fractured cheek bone (from crashing wave-related injury), workload, lack of sleep, blah blah blah (someone shut her up, please) my girlfriend calls and tells me that she's been in the hospital for almost two weeks with hepatitis and pancreatitis -- and was just taken by ambulance to Upstate Medical Center for emergency gallbladder surgery. She originally called two days ago because we had plans to go skiing/snowboarding this weekend with the kids and was freaking out about letting me down (!) and then again a moment ago because she didn't remember calling me the first time.

What, she can't take her hospital bed down the slopes at Greek Peak? Well, clearly she's aging, too, 'cause in our twenties I think she would have tried it. That's what hospital drugs are for, right?

Dammit.