Monday, November 24, 2014

Travel Plans

It is decided. In a week I am travelling to California to spend some time with my sister. I had good conversations, both with her and with my younger brother this weekend. She looks good, sounds optimistic. She is out of the hospital, back home in California, in the environment that she loves. She does need family help and support though and my brother and I will be taking turns giving her that.  I am so grateful that I can go there now, before things "get serious", as my brother puts it. 

Part of what my brother has been doing and what will be my job as well is keeping the health care ball rolling, which is in itself a major undertaking. It is something that I do all the time at work: checking with my patients to see if things are moving along, and if they seem to have ground to a halt get them started again. But I expect it to be a challenge, doing it as a family member in a country that doesn't have uniform systems in place.

The past weeks as I have been waiting - waiting to hear news, waiting to connect with her -  I have become more and more clear that I want to go see her now. I can always go back later - in fact I probably will, maybe a couple of times. And just in case I got all my christmas shopping and baking out of the way while I was waiting. 

But there is a lot to organize: time off work and care for my critters being most important. At first I thought I would just take Lucy with me, but for one thing it turns out to be outrageously expensive - easily as much as having her in a kennel for 2 weeks, and then there is the thought of her being cooped up in a crate for 17 to 19 hours. So I decided to scrap that idea, and have arranged for a very nice kennel for 10 days, after which my ex will bring her to my oldest daughter who will keep her til I come back. As for the cats,  I already brought one of them to my oldest son last weekend when my daughter and I went to Trondheim to celebrate a vegan thanksgiving with him and his partner. My ex and my neighbor will take turns taking care of the other 2 cats in my home. Luckily the farm where I live needs my ex to work so that he has some reason to be here. But I am so grateful for my neighbor, my ex, my kids - especially my oldest daughter, for all their help and support, and for my supervisor at work who made 6 shifts go away. I have 6 shifts during the time I am to be away and she has given me compassionate leave for 4 of them, and is letting me make up the other 2 at a later time. 

One tricky thing is how to get to the airport. There is no train early enough, but I can take the airport bus at 3:30. Except how to get to the bus station? My neighbor and I usually drive each other to the bus or train when one of us is travelling, and in fact I will be taking her to the bus on thursday, however she isn't coming back until later on the morning of my departure. We finally figured out that if I leave my car at the busstop then she can drive it home when she arrives. Good solution! So slowly but surely everything has been falling into place today. 

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