Illinois

After we left Indiana, Mom and I continued our swath of destruction. We arrived at my Aunt's house Monday evening. The next morning, we decided to take her and my Grandfather out to breakfast. After we picked up my Grandfather, whom I call Paw, I noticed that my Aunt R.'s speech was very slurred. She had had three strokes, so her left side was still a bit weak. Her speech had been a little slurred the night before and she had not slept well, so I just assumed that she was having problems speaking because she was tired.

When we arrived at Denny's, I helped Paw in, then looked back to check on Mom and my Aunt's progress. They were still struggling to get out of the car, so I went back to help them. With Mom and me on either side of my Aunt, we all managed to get into Denny's. The hostess at Denny's took one look at the group of us and decided to seat us in the very back of the restaurant. When we finally reached the table (after having passed several empty tables that would have held the four of us quite comfortably). At this point, Mom decided to run back to my Aunt's house and get her walker. She took off, and my Aunt, Paw, and I perused the menu.

After the waitress took our order, my Aunt looked like she was fading a bit--kinda shutting down. She is diabetic and hadn't had much to eat after she took her insulin, so she added some sugar to her orange juice. That didn't help and she looked like she was falling asleep, so I decided to dial 911.

Just as soon as I dialed, the waitress came out with our food.

"I'm gonna need those in boxes," I said, trying to keep an eye on my Aunt and hold a conversation with the 911 dispatcher.

"Okay," she smiled simply, "I'll bring out some boxes for you."

"No," I said slowly and clearly, "You're gonna need to put them in boxes for us."

A few seconds after that, my Aunt threw up. During this whole thing, no one in Denny's came over to see how we were or offer assistance. My Aunt was in obvious distress, and I was having what I'm sure was a rather loud conversation on a cell phone. But I'll tell you all, that waitress made sure she brought out the bill to the only person who wasn't occupied: my Paw.

When the ambulance finally arrived, about five EMTs crowded into Denny's. I backed off and let them do their job. I was pretty impressed with them--they zeroed in on the two things that might have happened, and focused on her blood sugar and her history of strokes. (But heck, after the folks at Denny's completely ignored us, anyone would have impressed me if they had shown the slightest bit of concern for my Aunt's welfare).

As they were wheeling my Aunt out in the stretcher, my Mom came back.

"I knew, just as soon as I saw the ambulance, something had happened to your Aunt," she said.

We just had a few seconds, so Mom and I decided that she would spend the day with Paw (who was understandably quite worried about his daughter), and that I would go in the ambulance with my Aunt (because she had spent all day Saturday in the ER with our neighbor, we figured I was up on the roster).

So I hopped into the ambulance (and was told by the EMT driving that while they were in Denny's, someone had hit the ambulance), and started making phone calls.

Anyway, I spent the day in the ER with my Aunt. The doctors finally decided that she had had a minor stroke, and that they were going to keep her for a few days, then send her to rehabilitation for a few weeks.

Wednesday Mom spent the entire day cleaning my Aunt's house. I helped during the morning, then visited my Aunt and Paw during the afternoon.

Thursday, Mom and I left for Missouri, to spread our traveling curse to a whole new area.