Note: All photos by Kate Poss
We began this road trip with a visit to the ER at 10:30 PM on Sept. 17. With an increasingly sharp pain in my lower left abdomen, I phoned Kaiser’s 24/7 advice line and the physician on call said I ought to go to the emergency room. I’ve had these symptoms in 2020 and 2023. At first I didn’t want to bother, since we planned to leave early the next morning, but I also didn’t want to chance not treating the symptoms and possibly getting sepsis, which my mom died of in 2012.
Bill drove me through the nearly empty roadways of Whidbey up to Coupeville. Arriving at Whidbey Health at 10:30 PM, I found the ER nearly free of patients, and the nurses friendly. I was given an IV, gave a couple vials of blood, was injected with iodine contrast–and rolled under the doughnut-shaped CT scanner. Yup. I have diverticulitis! The friendly nurse gave me a big white oval pill of Augmentin. We arrived home by 3:30 AM…