Yes, No, Maybe so

It's been a roller coaster day. I was scheduled to be on a parent panel at UCSF today. This was a retreat for nurses. You must know by now that nurses are among my favorite people on earth. Generally I love doing these things and demonstrate our glass half full approach. That was harder today.

About 5 minutes before it started I received a phone call from Josephine one of my home nurses. She hurt her back and had to cancel her three shifts this weekend. THIS weekend. The weekend Steve and I were planning to go away to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. I have been setting this up for weeks getting nurses lined up and supplies stored, renting a place for us, packing, preparing etc etc etc. Steve and I have been away alone together twice in the 17years since Maggie was born. It's a big deal and it looked like it was all going to fall apart. 

I went in to the panel with my heart in my mouth wondering how I could possibly piece things together at the last minute. Ironically I was in front of a room with 60 nurses in it trying to figure out where I could find a nurse. Of course nurses are not fungible,  I had to find nurses that know Maggie, know my house  and can work on their own because I wasn't going to be here to help.

We went through the presentation and it was well received, but I was not my jolly self at all, and I feel bad about that.  I'm very glad I prepared some stuff ahead of time because I was very distracted and feeling very sorry for myself.  As the other two presenters answered question I began to formulate a plan of attack. My brain was like def con 3 - I started mentally moving things around and finding ways the puzzle could fall into place. 

The first two efforts failed and I felt more dejected, but refused to give up. About an hour ago the puzzle came together. Fely will take Saturday afternoon and Tim will be here to help Fely, who can not do things on her own. Etoy will take Paulo's night shift and Paulo will cover Friday afternoon and stay a little longer on Sunday after his 7-3 shift on Sunday. We will have to be home by 5PM on Sunday, because there won't be a nurse after that, but that is completely doable.

I wonder if I can get a do over on the presentation. I'm feeling much calmer now.

We are off on our getaway. Keep your fingers crossed that nothing else goes wrong. I'll report back next week.