nomenclature

Stepdad Paul had to be taken to the emergency room the day after Christmas. He'd started feeling ill the morning before Christmas with the usual suspects: low-grade fever, chills, body aches. Mom sent him off to bed, where he spent the next 24 hours or so sleeping, drinking theraflu, and being generally miserable. This seemed particularly sad to us not only because Paul so rarely gets sick, but because Paul, while not much of one for complaint, seemed so very disappointed that he wouldn't be able to cook the Christmas dinner. (Paul is quite the amazing cook, and we all look forward to his Christmas dinners).

He was feeling a bit better by Christmas evening and emerged to join us around the dinner table for a little while. He even partook in the opening of the presents and, after making some sarcastically humorous remark, we all looked at each other and smiled knowingly. Our Paul was back on his game again. Thank God.

But not quite. Saturday morning found all of us gathered around the breakfast table staring with appalled fascination at Paul's right foot, which was bright as a boiled lobster and twice its normal size. Mom and I suggested he go to the hospital, just to have them take a look at it. Paul, being so rarely sick and a semi-rugged outdoorsman to boot, shrugged us off and retired with Shanna to the study to do a little internet research. A few minutes later he hobbled back downstairs and said, "Well. Yeah. You better take me to the ER."

Turns out Paul picked up a little bacterial infection while vacationing with Mom in Hawaii a few weeks back. A particularly nasty little infection that starts with what seems to be a 24-hour bug and ends in liver and/or kidney failure, meningitis, and eventual death.

Nate made up a bag lunch for them to take with them, and Mom drove Paul off to the Anacortes emergency room. I decided I better go see what was going on when, over an hour later, we still had not heard from Mom, nor was she answering her cell phone.

Evan very kindly drove me down to the hospital, where I had to call the ER from the waiting room and state my business. Which is what brings me to nomenclature. I said that I was looking for Vicki McNeil and Paul Dinnel, and when asked how I was related to them, started to explain that she was my mother, he was her husband, etcetera, etcetera. What came out, and what I found so surprising, was this: "I'm their daughter."

In the end, Paul got a course of IV antibiotics and a week's worth of pills and seems to be doing much better. And me, well if anyone asks me next December where I'll be spending the holidays, I might say, simply, "At my parents' place."