If it’s not one thing…

…it’s another. (And I don’t mean IHOP-KC’s Onething conference.) Let me start at the beginning.

The interview I mentioned in my last blog post went well. The company made me a job offer and said I could start at the beginning of June; all I had to do was call and finalize some details. So I had half of May free. It was just as well, since I was moving at the end of May. I packed a bit but was waiting for the last week or so to finish.

Monday the 24th was a packing day … or it was going to be, until I got a call. Crystal, one of my best friends, was in the ER in a lot of pain. I rushed over and spent all afternoon and evening there. They did a few scans and sent her home. She was still in major pain; the meds she’d been given weren’t doing much.

The next day we were all back at the ER. She screamed herself hoarse in the lobby for two hours straight. “Make someone come,” she would plead when she could get a breath. But all we could do was stand around and wait for them to see her. It was heartwrenching to hear her wailing like that and know we couldn’t do anything. After the ER people finally took her, they sent her home again, but recommended she see another doctor at the hospital ASAP and set up an appointment for surgery.

On Wednesday we went to the surgeon, who took one look at her and decided to operate right away. She had this massive, cantaloupe-sized growth full of fluid and blood vessels. The growth had twisted one of her fallopian tubes, which was the cause of the pain. (Not an ectopic pregnancy—just a growth.) The thing had to be taken out by C-section. When the surgeon lifted the mass out, she said, “It’s a boy!” Considering certain of the growth’s characteristics, its location, and the surgeon’s proclamation, I’m forced to resort to a tabloid-style headline and say—

My friend had an alien baby!!

Anyway, Crystal’s recovering, and is rather miffed that she didn’t get an actual baby after all the pain, but we are placating her with movies and ice cream. She got to go home on Thursday. Holden and I have temporarily moved into her house to help Bethy, her roommate, take care of her. Thank goodness she has a spare room; we’ve got air mattresses and all our stuff in here. Good thing we all have each other—this has been rough.

The whole week I was trying to coordinate moving out of my apartment to Gumby Ninja’s house with all of the medical stuff, plus I was fighting off a stomach bug and barely eating. I’d come home from the hospital or Crystal’s house to pack, clean, and run carloads of boxes over to Gumby’s house. Friday evening was spent half-inside the oven and fridge as we cleaned. On Saturday I moved all of my large furniture, some of it by myself when the guys had to go fix a car. On Sunday I looked (and felt) like the walking dead. Crystal sent me home to go sleep in my own bed (which I had carried downstairs myself). Then Monday was deep-cleaning the apartment and finding surprise boxes of junk in the closets. We scrubbed the apartment so hard it looked better than when we moved in, and then turned in our keys. Almost three years of living in our little introvert’s oasis—we had good (quiet) times.

You’d think all the stress was over, right? Crystal was recovering, I’d moved in at my friend’s house, and I just had to call my new boss to negotiate my salary and start date. Except when I called him, he said he didn’t need me at this time. I’d have to wait until August before he could hire me. So I’m going back to job-hunting, because I don’t want to wait until August to work. Trying hard not to be discouraged and trust in the L-rd’s provision—for me and for Crystal, since she got laid off from one of her jobs and is on bed rest for a while.

We’re all going out of town tomorrow. Holden is going home to Michigan for a while and taking Crystal with her, and is also dropping Bethy off at a camp she works at every summer. Wasn’t going to go since I thought I’d be working, but now … well, it’ll do us all good to get out of Kansas City for a while.

So that’s been my life the last few weeks. And here I always said I never had drama in my life.