We spent the weekend away in Seattle, our first real weekend away from Kellen. Although we missed him, it didn’t hurt to have a weekend away from the constant demanding needs of another human. The first night we were out to a nice dinner on the water, and another family came in with a whiny toddler, and I wanted to tell them that I had a No-toddler-within-50-feet-of-earshot rule while on vacation, but that didn’t seem fair! We have certainly caused our share of raucous at restaurants.

Our trip was mostly for my check-up with the Lyme doctor, and we decided to add on a couple days away. This was the view from our hotel room:

We watched cruise ships load and unload passengers as though it were a 24 hour cattle call. We made a mental note that if we ever went on a cruise, we’d arrive late and make sure we could afford to be a VIP.

On Friday, I had a PICC line put in. It’s a more permanent IV line that allows me to give myself daily meds that will hopefully penetrate the blood-brain barrier and kick these spirochetes to the ground. After I had it put in, I told Dan we needed to name it. When Dad was sick with cancer and we were being given a five year life expectancy (it’s been nine years thanks to a great clinical trial), we named his IV stand Freddie. Whenever it was time to walk around 4-south, one hand on the pole, the other closing his hospital gown, it gave us a momentary laugh to call for Freddie, the IV stand. I guess it personalizes medicine a little and makes it less scary or… medical.

Dan decided that we should name it Venus, the intravenous PICC line.