too sad to concentrate on work

I’m trying to clear the seniors for graduation (a task that I am seriously starting to think we are NEVER EVER GOING TO FINISH) and I can’t concentrate. None of us can. The most awful thing happened to our Dean’s assistant, who is also Mr. Organized’s niece (Mr. Organized is the youngest child in a big family, and his much older sister is R’s mother, so he is only a few years older than his niece is). Her daughter died this weekend. She was just 24, and it is the most bizarre and terrible thing. Week before last she was sick with a toothache and I think just generally feeling bad.  R. took her to the emergency room when she started running a fever and was acting confused. The emergency room said she had an abscessed tooth, gave her antibiotics, and sent her home. She kept getting worse, had a terrible headache, remained confused, was having trouble walking, and after another day R. took her back to the emergency room. This time they admitted her, and she pretty much went into a comatose state at that point. So for a week she was in intensive care, and they couldn’t figure out what was wrong. (I’ll insert a note here to say that our local hospital is TERRIBLE. It is a well-known fact that if you are sick enough for admission, you better get out of this town and drive the hour and a half to Baptist in Winston-Salem or to Mission in Asheville where they can probably actually help and not kill you).

They kept trying to do MRIs but couldn’t keep her still long enough to get a clear one. Finally, after days they did manage to get a clear MRI and diagnosed her with Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis  which is extremely rare, especially in adults. Apparently the cause is pretty much a mystery – it could be all kinds of things. The abscessed tooth could have triggered it, and could also have just been a coincidence. They gave her huge doses of antibiotics, and when she had not improved at all in several MORE days, (still not conscious, still on a breathing machine in ICU) the hospital finally decided it was time to send her to Baptist. The doctors there were consulting overseas doctors about her case, but she didn’t improve and on Friday had a 108 degree fever. Not long after that her doctors told the family that she had no brain activity and they would have to make the choice to remove her breathing tube. On Saturday they removed the tube, and she passed away on Sunday. 

I just can not imagine what her family is going through. She was R’s only child. She has a daughter that’s around two, and had just been accepted to nursing school, and was going to start very soon. You just can’t conceive of something like this happening, and pretty much out of the clear blue sky. And we are ALL wondering how much blame our hospital has in this. We’d been saying to each other from the time she was admitted that R really needed to get her out of here and down to Baptist or Mission. AND she didn’t have insurance- she’d just quit her CNA job to go to nursing school, and her husband couldn’t add her to his until the open period – like our insurance, you can only make changes once a year, in a few weeks gap. So we also really REALLY wonder if the hospital sent her away that first time because she didn’t have insurance. Of course they are not supposed to do that, but I’ll guarantee it happens.

Our whole office is just in shock and in mourning, for poor R and for Mr. Organized too. I can’t concentrate on the graduation clearances, and I’m sure I’m going to make serious mistakes if I keep trying to do them. And at the same time we are running really behind and they HAVE to be done. So I guess I better get back to it. 

We are also having our perpetual horrible weather — three inches of snow last night, more to come tonight, totals predicted of 6-8"!!! It’s been around and below freezing (with exception of a couple of days where it actually got in the 50s) for… well, EVER. All winter. And IT"S SUPPOSED TO BE SPRING!!!! Although what happened to R’s daughter does put that into perspective. And makes me feel less like whining. 

I also completely abandoned Scintilla, which makes me sad too. I had to go to Asheville right after I started and broke my streak, and just never did pick it back up. It was kind of overwhelming this year. Something like 200 people signed up, and it’s coordinated through Twitter which, okay, I admit I really do not understand. I never could figure out if anyone else was seeing my posts and I also couldn’t really figure out how to see other peoples posts, other than going to the Scintilla website and just clicking randomly on 200 names. I guess if I actually used Twitter at all except once a year during Scintilla it would have been simpler, but that kind of put a damper on it.  Oh, well. Maybe I can put my energy into some other writing project. The energy that I currently do not have.