Day 330, Year 10: A Little Trip to the ER
Date: Saturday, September 5, 2015
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Temp in the 70’s, Beautiful Day
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, MA
The day started out okay, but Mark just wasn’t feeling up to par. We went into town to return something to Walmart (wrong size) and to exchange parts Mark bought yesterday at West Marine (wrong size). When we arrived at Walmart we saw Sam and Jonah standing out front with other Boy Scout troop members selling popcorn. Girl Scouts sell cookies; Boy Scouts sell popcorn. It was fun to see them being so serious about raising money for the Scouts. Then we went to West Marine to get the correct size fittings for a repair Mark was going to do. When we were out sailing with the boys we discovered that a fitting on the top of one of the bronze thru-hulls installed last summer by Fiddler’s Cove Marina had rusted off completely. The thru-hull lets salt water into the boat and in this case the fitting on the thru-hull connected to a hose going to the forward head—water for flushing. But they had installed a galvanized fitting on the bronze thru-hull. Unlike metals really don’t like each other, and in only one year the galvanized fitting had rusted so badly that it fell off when Mark touched it. Mark bought a bronze replacement yesterday, but it was the wrong size. So we got the right size this morning and I took him back to Quissett. I dropped him off and then I took off for Hyannis to buy some material to make a sleeping bag for Ollie. When he returns to pre-school on Tuesday, he will be spending the full day. In the past he has always been picked up right after lunch, but this year he will stay and will nap there—thus the need for the sleeping bag. Heather really wanted to make him one out of material with little dogs on it as doggies are his most favorite thing. Since there is no place to buy material in Falmouth, I offered to drive to Hyannis to find it. I was successful, dropped off the material, and returned to Quissett to find Mark feeling very much under the weather. He had replaced the bad fitting but had then started feeling really awful. All indications were that he had a urinary tract infection that had gone from 0 to 10 in the just a couple of hours. He called Mass General with his symptoms to make sure it wasn’t something caused by the procedures done on Thursday, but they agreed that it sounded like a urinary tract infection. They recommended getting to an urgent care center as soon as possible to have a urine test, but we found no urgent care center in Falmouth open on this weekend. So we headed to the Falmouth Hospital Emergency Room. I was expecting a long wait, but he was in and out in just 30 minutes. Falmouth Hospital just opened their new ER section and Mark said that it is absolutely top of the line. And yes, he definitely has a urinary tract infection. We went to the drug store to get the antibiotic prescription filled and Mark came home and went right to bed. Just a bit ago, he got up long enough to eat a little and he is now back in bed. His temp is a couple of degrees high and he still feels just terrible. We’re sure hoping things are better by morning.
