not what you want to hear

 "Hon, I think you need to take me to the emergency room."

These are words you never want to hear, especially during our current corona virus crisis.  It was midnight.

I quickly dressed, we got in the car and sped (yes) to our tiny emergency room.  They wouldn't let me in, only the resident fisherman.

I stayed out in the car and waited.  And waited and waited.  It was 31*F but I was thankful for a full tank of gas so I could run the car from time to time.

Finally, I called in and asked if I could come in to use the facilities or if I needed to go home.  They invited me in (of course, my call first went to an offsite answering service...).

Once I was in, they allowed me to stay.  There were no other patients by that time (told you it was tiny) so I stayed and waited more.  His severe pain had subsided - thanks to medication and his blood pressure had come down.  An x-ray was inconclusive.

So, he would need a CT scan but it would take a few hours for him to drink what he needed for contrast.  He encouraged me to go home and get some sleep.

I did go home, but sleep was hard to come by.  I think I logged in an hour or two.  When I called the hospital to see if I could bring him home, they told me they were transporting him to a nearby hospital so they could take out his gall bladder.  So that is what was causing all the trouble!

That hospital was not allowing any visitors so my resident fisherman was whisked away without my being able to be with him before or after surgery.

He is home now, recovering.  This was his fourth surgery in two years.  He has also had radiation and a type of chemo therapy.  It is all a bit exhausting.

But we are thankful.  There are only a few cases of COVID 19 in our area so he was probably not exposed to it.  If life was going on as normal (remember normal?), I would have been going out of town.

As I was trying to figure out what I might feed him when he got home, I really wanted to avoid going to the grocery store.

We had some ginger ale, chicken bullion, chicken noodle soup but no popsicles.

So I made an un-popsicle .  It is kind of a mashup of some recipes I found.

Combine 1/2 C. sugar (the original recipe called for 1 cup!) with 1/2 C. boiling water to dissolve sugar.  Add 1 C. lemon juice.  Add to 2 C. strawberries (I also used mixed berries) and blend all in a blender.

Because I don't have any popsicle molds, I simply poured this into custard cups and put them on a tray in the freezer. It makes a very refreshing dessert and is packed with vitamin C.

Now our stay at home orders are extended to April 30.  I put on my inventory manager hat and planned out some more meals.

What are you eating these days?  Are you able to stay out of the grocery store?

I would really like to stay out of the grocery store, but with the extended quarantine and with only a few cases of COVID 19  in our area, I am thinking I should go shopping before it gets worse here.

I am thankful to have options to the grocery store.  If/when I do need to go shopping I will order from our farm share, pick up things from our little health food store and perhaps from the meat market.  These are little locally owned places and there are usually one or two other customers when I go in them. We like supporting local businesses.

I hope you are all well.  We have one case of COVID 19 in our family - my cousin's daughter.  She is 19 and just came back from Spain.  She has no symptoms but is being careful.

Billie Jo, I could not comment on your blog for some reason, but enjoyed your last post.  So peaceful.  Thank you.

looking forward to lilacs