Jeremy

It’s been a week when Skype has come in mighty handy. It gave me the ability to see my grandson Jeremy’s hospital room.

Jeremy is eleven years old and we came close to losing him this week. It’s not often that a person takes an emergency flight from the Nanaimo hospital to the Vancouver General.

For those of you who don’t know, my original home is Vancouver, British Columbia. I was born there, but grew up in Burnaby, a fairly large city adjacent to Vancouver.

Although my son was born in Winnipeg, as soon as he was old enough to fly alone he spent his summers with his grandparents, who by then had moved to the outskirts of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. Nanaimo is a small sleepy town with a beautiful harbour, and my son and his family have lived there for the last ten years.

Jeremy is blonde with blue eyes, very handsome and talks a blue streak. Normally he’s very good humored, not now. He’s mostly sleeping and wants to be left alone. He has a few bacteria strains in his body that have been identified and antibiotics should clear them up. But with the clotting it’s necessary to thin his blood. A staph infection, pnemonia and a brain clot took two days to become life threatening

Last Friday my son took him to the doctor and tests were done, the prognosis, everything was fine, bed rest and keep an eye on him were the instructions. Monday things had not improved. Again more tests, this time everything was not fine. Jeremy is lucky to be alive, spent a few days in intensive care, is now in a isolation room and recovering.

I don’t feel far away. The world is a very small place. Somewhere between 10 and 14 hours will get me from Oaxaca to Vancouver. The question is, if I’m there what can I do? Very little. The fatalistic feeling that rules my life continues, so little is in my hands.