Disconnected and Unexpected

Disconnected and Unexpected

By Allan Olson

A Geocache in the travel center in Fargo.

The day was here, I had promised my niece that I would take her to Fargo to check out a school that more closely aligned in what she wanted for her future, the debate since then was with or without kids, in the end, it was a kid free trip, as my wife is busy with prom season and couldn’t really take the time away from her office.  So my niece made the arrangements and scheduled her appointment. The evening prior I decided to do something I hadn’t in almost a year – disconnect the sync on my email with my phone. I figured that if I had my email going, I would be checking it and I wanted to be work free for the day. After her appointment we were going to check some areas for an apartment and then spend the rest of the day

geocaching all the way home when I figured we would arrive back between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Everything was going to plan, we did some geocaching found two really well done caches at the travel center in West Fargo, we were scouting some apartment areas and getting phone numbers and names and then we both decided that we were hungry. The deal was we didn’t want to eat somewhere that we could eat in Bemidji or somewhere close – so driving around we found a chain restaurant that we hadn’t tried before  - Ruby Tuesday.  Since I like burgers, I kept my order simple – a bacon cheese burger, I guess I should’ve been more clear when they asked how I wanted it cooked, I said  - done, not burned. When it came back, it was closer to charred than “just cooked” so my first impression was not that good. While we were sitting there eating our meal – then came the “unexpected.”

The Unexpected

My brother messaged me while I was eating, that my mom was in the ER and was going to be shipped to Grand Forks by ambulance in the next hour. At that point my stomach sank, I had just talked with her a couple days ago and to the best I could tell she wasn’t ill and didn’t say anything about being ill. She brought herself to the clinic thinking she would probably get some meds and go home. The medical staff decided that an X-ray was needed and it determined that she had fluid around her heart and they were in no way capable of treating that problem.

My niece and I discussed this and I sat there pondering whether I should head to Grand Forks, ultimately I knew I was but I had to discuss this in my head. In the meantime I messaged my wife who of course said, “keep me updated and let me know what you are doing.” I paid the bill at the restaurant and to take my mind off the problem a little bit, we decided to do some more geocaching around the town. In the meantime I was also messaging my brothers and talking with them on the phone. My older brother said he was leaving town and heading to Baudette to pick up dad and they were heading to Grand Forks. Since I was already in Fargo I had the leg up on all of them, I was only 80 miles away and they were all 3-4 hours and since the ambulance was going to run full speed I could easily beat them. So my mind was made up, I was going to Grand Forks and in the meantime, my niece and I continued geocaching for about another hour, knowing my mother was on the road but as long as I left in the next 90 minutes I could still beat her there.

So I continued my geocaching plans grabbing some of the challenge’s, that I had qualified for before we were finally going to start on the puzzles that we had solved over the last couple of weeks. However, for some reason my app didn’t update reflecting the solved coordinates and instead brought us to the posted coordinates. At this point, my niece and I made the decision to give up and head to Grand Forks.

We arrived in town and the first stop was for some clothes for me to change into since my day trip has no turned into an overnight trip. I arrived at the hospital and at that moment my mom had just arrived – and my brothers and dad were an hour behind and I sent my niece home with the vehicle. After asking for help and getting directions I finally found myself outside her room. A nurse asked if I could enter and was informed I needed to wait a bit longer. Finally, I was allowed to enter and I saw my mother and stayed in her room waiting until my dad and brothers arrived. Shortly after I arrived in her room, her phone started buzzing, I grabbed it noted who was calling and disregarded it. I sent them a message and let them know from now on I was the designated contact person and they can call me if they have questions otherwise I will update them when we had more information.  The rest of that day and for the majority of Saturday, I took care of calling most of the people and my dad contacted a couple others.

However, the drama didn’t end there.

Saturday morning, my wife and youngest brother were getting ready to come over and Marcus broke a glass while shoving ice into it and his finger would likely require stitches. So they brought him into the urgent care and then over to ER to get his finger looked at. In the end it only needed to be glued, but he ended up going with to pick me up.

We arrived home Saturday evening; I helped with supper than headed to my office to get some things I was missing for this week. On the way in, after driving 70 every time I hit the road I naturally stepped on the gas, I narrowly slowed down in time to avoid a ticket or at least a warning as near the Scenic Store sat a Beltrami County Deputy.  I grabbed my stuff and then remembered the reason I drove my wife’s vehicle was because my headlights are currently wacky – oh joy.

Writing all of this, my mother will probably be less than pleased, but she should know by now that this is what I do. So she will be the main subject of this column. By the time most people read this, she will have had surgery and should be home.

So for this mother's day I’m thankful that my mom was in the hands of a good medical team and will be here to celebrate again. In addition, I’m thankful for my wife, who is a good mother to our four meddling kids.

Please remember to watch out for the buses that are carrying our most precious cargo. Also snap a photo or two to preserve a lifetime of memories. Thanks for reading, and have a great week! Feel free to drop me a line at cltimes1@arvig.net or stop by the office for a visit.