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June 25, 2007
another unexpected twist...
so, some of you may recall that the summer jensen and i first met was marked by an emergency trip to chicago because his stepmom was gravely ill. well, this last week was marked by surprisingly similar events.
on thursday, i got a phone call from astrid telling me that jensen's dad had had another heart attack and that he was scheduled to have open heart surgery on tuesday. bomb dropped. his dad requests that all of his kids make it to chicago before the surgery so he can talk to them in case anything goes wrong. so, i give her the emergency contact number i have for jensen and begin the waiting game.
by thursday evening, their family hasn't gotten ahold of jensen, so i start trying the emergency contact number. no one answers. no answering machine picks up. i think i maybe have the wrong number. nope. so part of me definitely starts to panic. i mean, this is the published emergency, 24-hour contact number that was given out to all friends and family of LTC members and NO ONE ANSWERS?! finally, about 10pm (11pm Kentucky time), I get out the LTC graduation invitation and scour it for additional numbers. there's a number for an information hotline, but it doesn't say what hours you'll get an answer. i decided to try and call it, hoping for a human being on the other end.
i get an answer on the first ring.
a very nice young man takes down all my information, tells me they have to contact a few people, but they'll call me back. in the meantime, i go get online to wait it out. jensen and i's friend james is online. his girlfriend is at LTC so i start messaging him to find out what's going on with her. then he asks about jensen and how he's doing. i tell him about the emergency situation and that i'm trying to get ahold of jensen. james tells me he's actually on the phone with mel. so, he tells mel, she hangs up with him, goes and finds a drill sergeant, who then in turn goes and wakes jensen up. so around midnight, jensen gets woken up, asked if he has a cell phone and if he's used it recently (which of course makes him think he's in trouble). they tell him to go get his phone and check for messages. he does and then calls me for the details.
the next twenty-four hours were spent trying to figure out how to get him from fort knox to chicago in a short amount of time. as unfortunate as this situation is, the timing worked out well. yesterday (sunday) was the only day they were given off at LTC. so, i talked to a lieutenant colonel at fort knox, bought jensen a bus ticket for saturday, and got the time off at my own work to go meet him.
he arrived saturday in the late afternoon (his bus was an hour and a half late...it was an EXCRUCIATING hour and a half!). we grabbed something to eat and then went to the hospital. his dad was doing pretty well. the doctors have been very surprised at how well he's doing given his condition. he was up and around, refusing to just lay in bed. and, the couple weeks before this happened, their family had gone a cruise and to disney world. isn't it amazing that this didn't happen then, but rather when he was fifteen minutes away from a hospital with the #2 cardiac surgeon in the U.S.?
anyway, he talked to us and this, that, and the other. trying to keep us from knowing he's scared. trying to assure us that he'll make it to our wedding (which it's most likely that he won't even if everything goes well). a couple hours later, jensen's brother, pichie, arrives. he's at basic training at fort benning, GA and also had to get a few day pass to come. the rest of the evening was pretty much spent with pichie and jensen swapping training stories.
the next day, sunday, started with a huge puerto rican meal and then we returned to the hospital. by the afternoon, the room was filled with different extended family members. jensen's uncle ici (who he hasn't seen since he was about 9) came up from louisiana. he's a master chief in the coast guard and hasn't been able to be with the family very much in the past. oh, and by the way, this will be a weird mental picture, but now i know who jensen resembles. jensen has his mother's face, but his uncle's frame and build all the way. even their heads are shaped the same way! anyway, it was really cool to see the family come together.
yoly, jensen's stepmom, had requested that i make sure everyone prayed for cruz before we left the hospital. so before i left to take jensen to the bus station again, we all stood in a circle and prayed. i think it was a really good way to end the visit.
after that, i took jensen to the bus station, waited until he absolutely had to go, and then said tearful good-byes. it was much harder to say good-bye this time than when he first left for LTC. but, two weeks til i see him again, three weeks til we get married.
and the last time the emergency trip happened, it all worked out for the best. we're praying that the same will be true in the case. so, please be praying for the cartagena family, especially for cruz, his health, his surgery, and all the decisions that will have to be made afterwards.
Posted by Autumn at June 25, 2007 10:13 AM