July 13, 2008

July 13, 2008

Not having the internet in our apartment has made bad bloggers of us. Our junior editor has written a separate post detailing her medical (mis)adventures of the past week. Our senior editor spent the early part of the week in Chicago, details of which—in the uncharacteristic first-person singular—appear below. It’s a nuisance to cross the hall to the computer lab to post on our illustrious blog; but the world is a poorer place without it, and we consider the inconvenience of our editorial board a small price to pay for the illumination and enrichment of all humankind. We present the reader, then, with the latest installment of our inestimable Review, this time in a swanky, new “Justin & Lia Show” format (Lia first, so you can know when to stop reading—actually, Lia’s post is a bit “medical,” so perhaps it should be prefaced by a “Mother’s Only” admonition).

LIA:

A Week of Health Problems: or, Sketchy Medical Institutions Inside the Beltway

Now that I’m almost done experiencing them, I realize that parts of the past week were so wholly ludicrous they really ought to be recorded, and so I dutifully record. Last Wednesday, while finishing up the last of the laundry, I stooped to pick up a mostly-empty, ergonomically-designed-to-comfortably-sit-on-your-hip-laundry-basket and proceeded down the elevator one floor with it. However well this laundry basket works for normal humans, it certainly doesn’t for even slightly pregnant ones, and I had quite a crick in my back the rest of the evening. I did not let this deter me from my resolve to exercise everyday this week, however, and proceeded to the gym as planned around 9 pm that evening. With each step of the block-or-so walk to said gym the pain worsened; after only 20 minutes on a reclining bike I could take no more; and having barely drug myself back the same block-or-so to our apartment, I threw myself on the floor in utter anguish. Poor Justin found himself at 1 am that morning massaging away as though we were not 5 but 9 months pregnant and expecting a bundle of joy any moment.

Hurling curses at both the heavens and the laundry basket for the next few days, things took a curious turn Saturday night when my back became so tense I could not stop shaking. It seemed for all the world as though I were shivering, though I did not feel cold at all, but no efforts to relax my muscles availed anything. Sure I had accidentally overdosed on my extra strength Tylenol, I called my mother at 4 am (mercifully, only 2 am her time) to see if she could shed any light on the matter. Having gone through eight pregnancies herself, I was sure a similar episode had occurred at least one night of those 72 months of gestation. It was a wasted dollar.

Sunday Justin flew solo to church (piloted solo, I suppose; Julia and Eli were eager passengers) while I drifted in and out of delirium. That night I alternated between soaking our sheets with torrents of sweat and shivering uncontrollably.

Monday morning, very confused how one little laundry basket could cause so much trauma to a human system, I called my OB at Yale for advice, having previously contacted them on whether it’s aspirin, acetaminophen, or arsenic that is safe to take during pregnancy. After listening to my new ailments, they strongly suggested that if they continued, I go to a clinic and be evaluated. I concurred with this counsel, and promptly set myself to finding a clinic. Bereft of in-house internet, I had to go to the next best thing—the yellow pages. This turned out to be a second-best I hope never to be awarded for anything. The only one I could find, that was within 25 miles, that was walk-in, that was open, whose receptionist spoke English clear enough for me to understand, closed minutes before I was able to make it there at 4:00. Luckily, there was a sign across the street emblazoned with the helpful logo “After 4 Medical Care”. “A tender mercy!” I thought, and pulled right in.

Upon entering the office and finding myself behind only one other patient, I had a moment’s hesitation. “Is this office empty because it’s as shoddy as it looks, or because it’s my lucky day?” Trying to pander to my new, optimistic side, I went with the latter. Almost as soon as I handed in my registration (only “address” was misspelled; insurance information was not requested) I was called back to be seen. After inquiring after my symptoms, the doctor (at least I’m assuming this was he, since he was the only one in scrubs in the whole place, though his accent was heavier than the receptionist’s) asked me to stand up facing the window and felt down my spine. He then listened to my breathing, looked in my throat, decreed I had a mild throat infection and told me not to drink any cold water. “No cold water?” I asked. “No cold water,” he affirmed.

“So,” he summed up a few minutes later, “I think you just have a cold. However, because you are pregnant, I will do some blood work on you. Are you okay if I draw blood?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“It costs $30.”
“Okay.”
“Do you have insurance?”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“Yale.”
“We don’t take that. Can you pay cash?”
“$30? Yeah.”
“Okay, I will tell her to do the test.”

I don’t know what the nurse’s actual name was, but if you saw her, you’d definitely dub her Big Bertha. In comes Big Bertha with all her needles but only half her teeth and starts setting up.

“Um,” I begin, “I haven’t eaten very much all day because I’ve been sick, and I have to drive myself home, and I usually pass out or come close to it whenever they take my blood, so could you just have the juice and crackers ready?”
“Juice and crackers?” she asks, puzzled.
“Yeah, it usually takes at least two cups of juice to get my blood sugar back up after they take my blood.”
“Uh . . . .” she makes a speedy exit. Back in comes the Doctor.
“You want juice?” he asks.
“Well, it usually takes two cups before I get back to normal.”
He looks at me in slight disbelief, then motions around the stained, brown room, taking in the four jars of cotton ball/popsicle stick/alcohol pad/latex glove medical equipment in all their glory and announces, “We do not serve juice here. You have nothing in your bag you can eat?”
“Just cheese.”
“Cheese,” he repeats. He stares a few more moments. “I will take your blood. I can almost promise you will not pass out.”

He instructs Bertha to monitor my blood pressure—a measurement taken completely by machine, so no skill is needed on Bertha’s part except to push the green button and read out the numbers that appear—and proceeds to take my blood. He’s right, I don’t pass out, probably because his draw is one fiftieth the volume of Yale’s. Bertha, meanwhile, yells out a blood pressure before he commences, one while he draws, and one when he’s done. But she ain’t through yet.

“107/63!” . . . ..”115/58!” . . . ..”102/64!” . . . .”110/59!” . . . “112/84!” . . . .”100/72!” . . . .
“What are you talking about?!” the Doctor demands, turning from his sealing and labeling.
“Her blood pressure.” She answers innocently.
“We’re THROUGH taking her blood! You don’t need to do that anymore! She’s done!”
Bertha sheepishly takes the cuff off my arm. I’m graciously charged only for the blood work, not for the visit, and told I will hear the results in two days if there is anything abnormal.

Monday night is a little better, thankfully so because Justin is in Chicago for a summer associate conference and I’m home with the girls by myself. Tuesday we’re trying to take it easy again, lazing away the morning, meeting up with friends at the park to play before lunch and naps. During lunch I get a call from a nurse at my OB’s office.
“How are you feeling?” she asks. I tell her, mentioning my visit to the clinic and that it had to be the shabbiest get-up anywhere in the state, at least.
“Did he do a urine sample?” she asks. I answer in the negative.
“Well, he should have done a urine sample, because a pregnant woman with back pain and fever probably has a UTI, and that can cause pre-term labor. If your fever comes back I don’t want you to go to a clinic, I want you to go straight to the ER and get treated.”

While the girls continue sleeping and I continue waiting for my fever to return I get a phone call. It’s the doctor from the clinic.
“Hello, I need to speak with Mrs. Collings.”
“This is she.”
“This is Dr. So-and-so from the clinic . . . “
“Yes?”
“Your lab work came back and you have a serious infection in your blood.”
“Really?”
“Yes. You have a very serious infection in your blood. You need to go to the ER immediately.”
“Oh. Okay.”

To make this long story a little bit shorter, and without going into all the details about the trauma of the girls having to sleep over at a friend’s house (thank heavens we’ve made at least one friend in our ward while we’ve been here!), of trying to get a hold of Justin in Chicago, of sitting for six hours in labor and delivery, of dealing with the fury of the resident who was absolutely sure I was just a hypochondriac, because obviously a person with a serious blood infection would be very ill indeed and I was not such a person, I am happy to report that notwithstanding the very bad medical practices of Dr. Nacho Libre, I was released from the hospital the same night with a prescription for antibiotics treating a UTI, was reunited with my daughters who had officiously helped open all the birthday gifts of their one-year-old hostess 16 hours before her party, and was rejoined by my affectionate and solicitous husband a few hours later, who promptly sent me to bed, for which I was more than grateful.

Ah . . . .happy endings.


JUSTIN

Our Senior Editor Goes to Chicago: And Soon Comes Home: World Wonders “Why?”

Because a stiff insensibility to boredom, however catastrophic, is the signal mark of a good lawyer, the governing powers of the law firm of Winston & Strawn sentenced the firm’s summer associates to a four-day conference at its Mothership office in Chicago. So I went on the second business trip of my otherwise happy life.

We arrived in Chicago Monday afternoon and were graced with a couple hours of freedom before reporting for a pan-summer associate social in the evening. We made use of this time by seeing the sights—at least a couple of them—of the windy city. We lunched at Harry Caray’s, which allowed me nostalgically to relive the heady summer days of my boyhood when my friends and I abetted our boredom by alternately watching Cubs games and Saved By the Bell reruns on WGN. In the spirit of the outing, I ordered the “Holy Cow” burger and luxuriated in its overpriced mediocrity.

The dinner and social were held at an establishment called Carnivale, marked by its loudness and distinguished by the scandalous pictures that disgraced its walls. I did meet a handful of summer associates from other offices, waxed amiable, and promptly forgot their names. The other highlight was a kind gesture from my colleague Ralph Pantony, who ordered a Shirley Temple at the bar for Gladriel Clayson, an LDS classmate (at Yale) and coworker, but, being unable to find her, he gave it to me. I rather enjoyed the mixture of cherry seltzer, sprite, and orange juice. Still, I couldn’t get out of that place soon enough.

To my dismay, the first bus back to the hotel, which should have left at 8:45, departed a few minutes early and I missed it to my sorrow. Soon enough, however, I was successively back to the hotel, on the phone with Lia, curled up with Jane Austen, and in bed dreaming sweet dreams of graduate school.

The next day—our first full day of “conference programming”—was really too dull for words. The day began early if hardly bright. We reported to the grand ballroom of the misnamed Renaissance Hotel (not one idol to the memory of Lorenzo il Magnifico to be found anywhere) at the iniquitous hour of 8 a.m., a hardship about which my colleagues loudly complained. Those of us who habitually arise at six and drink nothing stronger than Shirley Temples sometimes wonder at our peers’ dogged aversion to displaying signs of life in the forenoon.

After a continental breakfast we heard from Tom Fitzgerald, a partner in the Chicago office and the firmwide managing partner (a sort of CEO). Mr. Fitzgerald, an amiable and intelligent man and a diehard enthusiast of Notre Dame football (the dying has been rather hard recently), braved a fever and other ailments to trumpet the glories of Winston & Strawn. This was followed by an uninterrupted series of presentations, including a sort of mock trial that featured an oral argument from James Thompson, a Chicago partner, the firm’s chairperson, a four-time governor of Illinois, and a formidable orator; a soporific and hackneyed presentation on the always-nauseating theme of “Taking Charge of Your Career”; a briefing in the social graces—actually a training in sycophancy and groveling—from one Mary Crane, a former White House chef and now a professional lecturer on the etiquette circuit; and an unimaginably tedious introduction to “The Business of a Law Firm”—i.e. the horrors of hierarchy and the billable hour.

I am happy to report that all this while I was not a whit bored. Mercifully, our tables in the grand ballroom were well-stocked with pens and notepads, ostensibly for the purpose of taking notes. I took notes with a vengeance.

Or so it seemed, for a time, to my table-mates. I was actually writing a talk on a Pioneer Day theme that I’m to deliver in sacrament meeting on July 27. I was amazed at how quickly the time passed, and at how fluently I wrote. The conference wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Unfortunately, one of the presenters was on to my game. Mary Crane, our etiquette and sociality mentor, presented an inevitable “Top Ten” list—three of them actually—and some how singled me out as the one to track how far we had progressed down each list. Her choosing me was all the more remarkable, as it was preceded by her asking all persons whose Christian names began with “J” to raise their hands. How did she know I wasn’t listening? And how did she know my name? Eerie. Most decidedly eerie.

However that was, I was stuck responding dutifully to Mary’s intermittent inquiries: “Justin!!! What number are we on!!!” I kept a tally in my margin, lest I embarrass myself, but even this provision didn’t allow me to write with perfect calm. Against my will, I was constrained to listen. For my pains I was awarded a fashionable “Mary Crane” mug, complete with a handle and a design reminding the consumer of a meal in high society that the bread plate lies to his left, the drink plate to his right. At the social that evening, a female summer associate complimented me on how well I had done at my assigned task of numerical navigation through the Top 10 lists. It was all I could do not to remark that I was a many-years veteran in the arcane art of counting.

The evening’s social went better than I had apprehended. I was in an unwontedly sociable mood, and almost enjoyed getting to know summer associates from other offices. I met a trio of interns from the L.A. office who exuberated with extravagant and romantic notions about the Yale Law School; I hadn’t the heart to disabuse them. Indeed I fear I rather abetted than corrected their wild views, though I did disavow any presidential ambitions of my own.

We dined and mingled at the Chicago Illuminating Company, which looks like a warehouse on the outside but overflows with all things chic within. This was the “hiring committee dinner,” for which we were adjured to be on our best behavior. Though I failed to stand at attention in the presence of partners, on the whole I think I acquitted myself well. I enjoyed the evening, but not even to pass on the first bus back to the Renaissance Hotel.

Returned to my hotel room, I found a message on the phone from Lia. “Hi Justin, this is Lia,” it began, adding reassuringly, “I am in the ER; please come home.” I called Lia back and she explained that she had a urinary tract infection (UTI) which required immediate antibiotic attention; that the girls were staying with Warren, Elaine, Audrey (3), and Lydia (1) Lake; that she was doing okay, but that it would be all for the best if I could get home as soon as I could. Before I went to bed, Lia called to say she had been discharged from the hospital and was on her way home. She decided not to interfere with the girls’ sleepover at the Lakes’.

It was too late to fly back to D.C. that night, but I did catch a flight early the next (Wednesday) morning. I met with every imaginable delay on the way home—the traveler in this country usually does—but still got home in the early afternoon. When the girls saw me, they went absolutely bananas. Lia just cried, however softly. We were all very happy to be together again, and very happy that the Chicago conference meant I had the next two days off. These were great days spent playing together as a family, visiting the library, and—especially in Lia’s case—taking prodigious naps. It felt good to be needed. It felt even better to learn that Lia was okay.

July 12, 2008

This morning we watched the Sevy kids while Travis and Lindsay made one last temple trip before their departure for China. The watch was mine while Lia prepped herself for the day. Book in hand, I followed the fearsome foursome from room to room. As soon, it seemed, as I settled in one room the kids fled to another, apparently to escape supervision. At one point, I was reading alone in the kids’ room when Eli emerged, beaming proudly, her little arms stuffed to the brim with assorted articles. Proudly, she displayed to me the glories of her load. “I have Sleeping Beauty [a doll]; I have Belle [another doll]; I have my sock [only one of them]; I have my tired.” Duly impressed, I expressed my admiration and Eli scampered out of the room.

Travis and Lindsay returned from the temple with a pair of pizzas secured on their way back to our apartment. Upon these we feasted with a hearty good will. The Sevy parents then insisted that Lia and I “go out” and “do something.” I have historically been skeptical of such enterprises, but we yielded to their entreaties and left our home—not to mention our children and theirs—in their command.

Thus liberated, Lia and I naturally made our way to a bookstore, where Lia bought a new diary and I bought Harold Bloom’s anthology of “The Best Poems in the English Language.” Mostly we just enjoyed being together, sans filles, holding hands, surrounded by books.

Back at home the kids were having a riot. Julia, Mayah, Asher, and Eli staged theatrical interpretations of Cinderella, casting themselves, respectively, in the roles of the eponymous heroine, her fairy godmother, and Jaq and Gus the mice. They also watched The Princess and the Pauper, a Barbie computer-animated DVD that was Mayah’s birthday gift to Julia. Travis assured us—more than once, and with disconcerting earnestness and unconvincing protestations of his initial objections to the entire Barbie business—that the show was actually pretty good. We replied that we would take his word for it, mostly for the sake of being spared the agony of actually watching it.

The Sevys left before the show ended. After her anxieties about getting to finish her film were calmed, Julia bade Mayah a tearful farewell, with many promises to write as soon as she learned how. They also aired the possibility of a future reunion, upon which Julia excitedly announced to Lia and me that “Mayah and I are going to the same Utah!!!” Asher and Eli faced each other off and giggled nonsensically, for old times’ sake. Lia and Lindsay exchanged hugs and well wishes. I did my best to avoid anything resembling a formal farewell.

After they were gone, the girls finished their movie and we all took naps—well, I started a nap but soon got up to read. The rest of the day passed uneventfully—cleaning and dining and grocery shopping. It’s been a good week, mostly because I spent so much time with Lia.

On that sentimental note, the truly intrepid reader is rewarded for having remained awake through such an insupportably long post with pictures from our 4th of July trip to Mount Vernon, complete with George Washington's Birthday Cake. Peace out [- Eds.].