Leaving Ron Behind

Isaiah and I are off on our big adventure together. I was worried that he'd be hard to travel with at night because he'd be tired. He was amazing. He did sleep for about 3 hours on the 2nd plane ride, but woke up and actually walked for me. He was a big help at the hotel and was just a lot of fun for me. Of course, he charmed everyone. The lady behind us on the first plane ride said she was very impressed with him. Also on that flight was a young black lady (age 19) who has MS. She was traveling with her mother and when the mom sat down, Isaiah said, "Hello, my name is Isaiah. I like your hair." She was flabbergasted and told him thank you. The daughter, Marva, chatted off and on with Isaiah and they both said how cute and well-behaved he was.

The second flight was the longest but he did amazingly well on them both.

I hated to leave Ron behind. He feels so bad right now that I was really worried that he was going to go into kidney failure or something while I'm gone. We spent Thursday getting him ready for my trip as much as getting me ready for my trip. I changed his pain patch, dressed his foot, loaded up his pill dispenser with 5 days worth of pills (Keith knows he's got to do the rest of the days, change the pain patch every 3 days, and dress the foot every other day). I got Ron's laundry all done and put away so he'll be able to find things. Stocked his cabinet with extra toilet paper (if he ran out he wouldn't know where to look), went to the store and bought things he could fix in the microwave, bought him fresh fruit and his favorite soft drink - Sprite Zero. Then, to make him feel extra-special, I stopped at Sonic and got him a Route 44 Diet Limeade with extra lime.

At one point during the course of the day he looked like he felt really bad and when I asked him what was wrong, he just started crying. "I'm going to miss you while you're gone." Ah.... I felt so bad for him that I tried to talk him into coming, knowing as I was doing so that I'd have a hard time coming up with matching tickets and that taking care of him and Isaiah would be almost more than I could do. As much as I hated to leave him behind, I don't think I could have done both of them.

I made sure that Keith knew how despondent he was and he promised me that he would spend more time than not with his dad. That is a relief. Amy will be back from western Kansas on Tuesday so she'll be home with him after school that day. Then she can work out a schedule with Keith to decide who is staying with him what nights of the week. Isaiah and I return on the 13th.

I am calling him every night.