- FRIDAY, APRIL 25: Jack Johnson, The Verve, The Raconteurs, Fatboy Slim, Tegan and Sara, The Swell Season, The National, Stars, Diplo, Vampire Weekend, Architecture in Helsinki, Black Lips, and Rogue Wave.
- SATURDAY, APRIL 26: Portishead, Death Cab for Cutie, Rilo Kiley, M.I.A., Hot Chip, Cold War Kids, Animal Collective, DeVotchKa, Flogging Molly, Mark Ronson, VHS or Beta, and St. Vincent.
- SUNDAY, APRIL 27: My Morning Jacket, Spiritualized, Gogol Bordello, The Streets, Metric, Murs, and Sia.
DH and I had been dating for only a couple of weeks when DH called and said simply, "Help." I knew then that something was tremendously wrong. I drove like a bat out of hell from Alexandria up to Bethesda. When I got up to his apartment he was shaking and crying and in oh so much pain. Since I didn't know Bethesda I had to call up a friend who lived in Maryland and asked for the nearest hospital. Luckily, there was one about ten minutes up the road from DH. I knew we were in horrible trouble when DH looked over at me and simply said "Please, please hurry."
Well, I pulled up to the ER and DH was rushed into the back while I was up front trying to get him admitted. Let me tell ya, when you've only been dating a guy for a couple of weeks, the hospital admissions process is like the dating test from hell.
"Please answer the following: Name, Age, DOB, SS#, Address, Employer, Parents Names, Health Insurance..."
Anywho, I got through all of the paperwork and they finally let me go back to see DH. He was incredibly looped because they were pushing morphine through his IV. As we waited for the x-ray to come back, he asked me to call his parents. Yeah, that was fun.
"Uhm, hi. I'm sorry to wake you at 3 in the morning but I'm dating your son DH? Has he mentioned me? Ok, good. Yeah, well, he's in the hospital BUT HE'LL BE OK! He's going in for emergency surgery but HE'LL BE OK. Yeah...yeah...no, HE'LL BE OK! No, he doesn't want you to fly over...HE'LL BE OK!"
So that's how I first met my future in-laws; on the phone, in the middle of the night. I apparently won major bonus points because I called them back post-surgery to tell them that he was fine and what the prognosis entailed. (As if I wasn't going to call them back. C'mon, people, that's what you do!)
DH's surgery took a couple of hours instead of a routine 45 minutes since he's a medical oddity. DH's appendix was covered in scarring because he is one of the few people diagnosed with REOCCURRING appendicitis! I didn't even know such a thing existed. Apparently all the times he had horrible stomach pain (that he would wait out, no less!) was a case of appendicitis. How he managed to have appendicitis several times a year for a couple of years is beyond me. I once asked him "If you're in so much pain that you can't move and it's making you vomit, shouldn't that be a sign that you need to go to a hospital?" He just shrugged. Men, I tell ya...
Anywho, I stayed with DH for a couple of days in the hospital while he recovered. My bosses were really fantastic and let me take sick leave even though DH wasn't technically family. He still needed another week or two to recuperate once we got him back to his apartment. He was so brave and amazing. I still can't imagine all the pain he went through.
People ask me when I knew that DH was the one for me. I think it was one afternoon in the hospital when DH said "You know you don't have to stay. Really, I'll be fine." I looked him in the eye and said "You're an idiot. I'm not going anywhere." That's when I knew that I had committed myself to this wonderful, brilliant man.
I can't wait for DH to get back tonight.
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