Thursday, December 18, 2008

Over the River


The weekend can't get here quickly enough. The weather is promising more snow tonight after the ordeal we went through the other night. Tuesday afternoon started innocently enough with a text message to do a start of care at 6 PM-only forty five miles away from my home. Knowing the snow would start around 8 PM, I was not thrilled to be way out in the boonies when it hit and tried to no avail to change my appointment time. I drove to my office on dry pavement to get supplies; when I got back in my car, there was a coating of snow-all in 10 minutes. Oh-oh. The white stuff was 3 hours early and struck at rush hour.

I headed toward my destination at a snail's pace. Twenty five miles west and only half way there, it would take 2 hours or more to get to where I was going. I'd have been quite late so I checked with the supervisor, rescheduled my appointment for Wednesday and turned around to go home. Two minutes later, the phone rang to notify me I had to go pronounce a patient's death. This one was forty five miles northeast of where I was. I knew exactly where this patient's home was-I'd been there the previous week. Let me tell you, if I thought my first destination was the boonies, then this was the outback. It was up into the thumb of the mitten and on a good day, takes close to 2 hours to get there. Not knowing the exact way to get there from my current location, I'd listened to hardheaded Tim, who like a typical man, took me down every single back road he could find. For God's sake, he took me down a dead end road directly behind my patient's home. He wanted me to nose my car down a TRAIL. He thought it was a road. We argued for 2 minutes and being the bright one in the car, I got out and knocked on a stranger's door to ask directions. That's the difference between me and the man I drive with, I'm not afraid to ask another human for directions. Sheesh! If Tim isn't careful, he is going to have a gender switching operation.

With new instructions, I reached my destination in an impressive 3 hours. Adding insult to injury, of course this death was in a county where the medical examiner mandates we summon a police officer to the scene. The family and I waited another hour for the sheriff to arrive to ascertain there was no monkey business. Once he was finished asking silly questions, we had to wait another hour and a half for the funeral home to get there. After all was said and done, I was still 45 miles from home and had to reverse the whole process to get there (minus the part where I listened to Tim). The urge to spend the night in the now vacant house was overwhelming.

This snow issue is not going to be good. The forecast for tonight is not promising and those liars at the weather station, who like to say they know exactly when a storm hits, were wrong Tuesday. I'm planning for the snow to start at 9PM-they say midnight. It will snow all night into Friday and the white stuff will continue well into the day. Six to ten inches, in places a foot of fluff, will fall. Isn't that the kind of weather that should find me indoors making soup, lighting a fire, wrapping gifts and sitting near the Christmas tree?

Maybe I should ask Santa for a team of sled dogs...

8 comments:

Betty F said...

Well it sounds like an awful day. Your upcoming weekend sounds wonderful though... fireplace wrapping gifts. Have a good weekend!

Jane said...

Sounds like my dad's shortcuts, always took longer than the direct route! Hope you manage to miss the next snow

Lisa L said...

Ugh. Not a good Hospice night :(

flydragon said...

Jeeze louise!! I remember you posting a while back about not looking forward to the coming months because of the amount of driving you would have to be doing. I guess it's here. A little duct tape around Tim's mouth might be in order:)

Rositta said...

Well this time don't blame Canada...it's coming in from south of you. I'm holding my breath for Tuesday morning when we have to head to the airport. Our city is real bad about plowing roads and if we get what they are predicting a cab won't even get in this road yuck. Their calling this a one, two, three punch...ciao
ps. never trust someone named "tim"

Brenda said...

Driving in that mess is never fun, but for more than a couple hours is down right nerve racking. Hope things get better for you. I wonder who designed those Toms or Tims, a man or a woman? Think I will go look it up.

Anonymous said...

Glad you made it home safe and sound. I hate those kinds of drives and try to avoid them, but as you know it is almost impossible. We are getting hit very hard here, no school for anyone.
Stay warm!
XXXXX

sandy said...

What an ordeal!!! I can't believe how long it took you to get there, 45 minutes away. Here's hoping you get to stay close to home through Christmas.