8:34 pmAttention!
Hi. Our family loves attention. We need to have it all the time. From everyone we know. And even some people we don’t know.
Usually we acquire this attention by being generally awesome. Winning awards. Collecting trophies. Wearing fashionable clothes. Saving puppies. Thinking of creative ways to alleviate world hunger. Awesome stuff like that.
But when these standard practices don’t afford us the attention we think we deserve, we pull out the big guns. And our big guns are: going to the hospital with some sort of weird condition that has doctors and nurses scratching their heads.
(Our goal is to have one of our family members make an appearance in a medical journal… that would REALLY get us some attention.)
Last spring Jon went into the hospital (he drove himself…) with a weird heart condition. People were all like “OMG, WTF? R U guys ok?” and other misspelled tidings of worry. Facebook was all a-Twitter (get it?). His heart thing gave us some nice attention. For a while. But then summer came and people were paying attention to the nice weather and going to the pool and having picnics and taking vacations, and our family was kinda falling by the wayside and not making much note-worthy headway on the whole curing global hunger thing. We began feeling attention starved.
By the fall, it was pretty bad. Wearing fashionable clothes… not working. Saving puppies… nothing. In late September, sweet little Deac had had enough of people not paying attention. He took one for the team and flung himself off the bed, causing a rad head injury. I don’t know what would have happened otherwise. Without all the pics of Deac with a neck brace and a “brain drain”, our family may have fallen completely off the attention radar.
But then Christmas rolled around. People were talking about this awesome guy named Santa and this really cool baby named Jesus, and our family was feeling really left out again. Pay attention to us, we beckoned. But nay, there was no room at the inn (where “room” = “attention”, and the “inn” = “people’s minds”). So Jon decided to make another go at it. (He’s a real peach.) While, in truth, this latest health issue has been plaguing him for several months, he wasn’t admitted to the hospital for it until this past Tuesday. Which was his mom’s birthday. Because the whole thing was set up to steal his mom’s thunder on her birthday. (We are really good planners.) I even got to burst into her dining room during her birthday dinner, ding a fork on a glass, announce that Jon had a blood clot in his liver, and hand-off my baby for her to babysit. On her birthday.
How’s that for attention?
And now it’s New Year’s Eve and he’s still in the hospital. We are trying to steal New Year’s Eve’s thunder. Take that, New Year’s Eve!! (Note: New Year’s Eve will now be called “Jon’s Clot Eve”. You celebrate by curling into the fetal position, clutching your stomach, refusing to eat, and having intravenous narcotics administered to you. It’s not a bad holiday, really. Oh, but then you also have to have blood thinners administered… and that’s done by giving you a shot IN YOUR STOMACH, twice a day. For several weeks. I guess that part of Jon’s Clot Eve is actually kind of a downer…)
Pay Attention to Us!! We are running out of ideas! Up next, though: I contract Scarlet Fever, gout, and swine flu… perhaps with a side of lock jaw.
Let’s see how many Facebook comments and ward casseroles we can get for that one…
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We tried that whole attention grabbing thing from 1996-1998. We had our personal room at the hospital when Sam contracted encephalitis for 16 days, then Derek with post-infectious streptococcal glomerulonephritis (say that 3 times fast) for 8 days and Dan had an appendectomy. It worked…we got lots of attention but our health insurance premiums got too high. So now we just make a big scene when we’re in public.
Thank goodness Jon can be treated…hope you can find out what caused it…prayers are with him for a speedy recovery.
Comment by Joan — December 31, 2009 @ 9:08 pm
Well. there you go. That, TOTALLY upstages our ringing in 2004 in the ER. Nathan fell at my Mom’s New Year’s Eve party and had to get his head “glued”. Sadly, it required no stomach shots… You guys are SO lucky!
Our thoughts and prayers are with you and I’ll have the ward casseroles en route any minute.
Comment by Jenna — January 1, 2010 @ 10:23 am
You guys are so awesome! I’m telling you a “House” episode is in your future! It can even be worked into your New Year’s Goal. Write an episode and submit it. Then you’ll be famous twice!
Comment by Dianalolsen@gmail.com — January 1, 2010 @ 12:55 pm
Very funny post. I hope things are settling down at your house and you are recovering from all the “attention”, lol.
Comment by Alice Holyoak — January 1, 2010 @ 1:09 pm
Ok, I know some people deal with things with humor. Glad to see that you ake everything in life so seriously.
I hope all is well, Suz!
Comment by ShayLo — January 1, 2010 @ 6:03 pm
Nice to see you are still laughing! This sounds terrible - what a bummer of a New Years. Hope Jon is feeling better soon!
Comment by Heather — January 2, 2010 @ 5:38 pm
Geez lady, we like you already. You don’t have to sacrifice body parts for us to adore you; it sounds hard.
May 2010 be drama-free and may Jon feel better, pronto.
Comment by lisa milton — January 3, 2010 @ 4:57 pm
I second Diana’s idea. You need to write an episode of House and submit it!!
Comment by Sam — January 5, 2010 @ 10:55 am
As bad as it all is, your post was hilarious. I’m glad Jon’s okay. He is, right? I still have some more catching up to do with you.
Comment by Leslie — March 1, 2010 @ 11:59 am