Somewhere around 1962 the BBC ran a weekly comedy series for two or three years that poked fun at current events and the media stories of the day. The attached clip "A Consumer's Guide to Religion" is taken from one of the shows. Saturday Night Live of today no doubt took some inspiration from the forerunner news comedies like TWTWTW, the logo for the full title of the show That Was the Week that Was. The show was also referenced by the even more cryptic TW3.

I have thought of That was the Week that Was many times in the past days.

It all started Tuesday September 5th around 7 PM. We received a call from one of Emily's friends that she had been airlifted by helicopter to a hospital in Reno, Nevada. She was at Burning Man, an annual 10 day festival out in the desert. The event has grown over the years to some 70,000 participants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Man.

Emily went into anaphylactic shock, which is an extreme allergic reaction. She has had these extreme life threatening reactions before. In her first year of veterinary college when she was studying in Scotland and discovered the common sensitivity among Koreans to Scottish heather. She carries an epipen to inject epinephrine when an attack starts. Without it, anaphylactic shock is often fatal. The extreme allergic reaction closes the patient's airway completely.

All we knew was that she was intubated so that she could be kept breathing with a ventilator machine and was taken by helicopter to Renown Hospital in Reno.

Within the hour after the call we were on our way to Reno. It is a nine hour drive, but no flight could get us there sooner. There are no flights to Reno after 8 PM even with all the big airports around us. Much of the drive is on remote two lane highways. I knew we had to get to Emily as quickly as possible, but I couldn't imagine how we could drive for 9 hours straight. But we did. After I drove for 5 hours, Lynn relieved me for a couple hours. Fortunately, it was over divided highway with hardly any other vehicles. 

As I finished the last two hours into Reno, I drove through a sleepy small town without a light on anywhere. Nothing was moving. Then a cop lit me up. He asked if there was some emergency. We had a story and a half to answer that question! Sometimes it helps to be old and white with a boring driving record. We were off again with just a verbal warning and dragged out of town at 25 mph.

The hospital allowed us to visit Emily  at 4 AM when we finally arrived at the hospital and we were somehow still conscious. We found Emily as you seen in the attached picture. She was unable to speak with the breathing tube down her throat and her hands restrained. When she saw her mother come in the room, the tears flowed as I have never seen Emily cry before. Lynn is such a pillar of strength and reservoir of hope for all of us every day, but especially so in a moment like Emily's battle back from the brink of suffocation. Her good friend Sonia who had saved her life was with her in the Intensive Care Unit.

We learned that the epipen Emily was carrying was out of date. It was ineffective when Emily injected herself.  Sonia reassured Emily that the medical team from Burning Man would be there soon. Emily softly answered Sonia, "I don't think I have that much time." Sonia realized she had to save Emily's life somehow without the Burning Man medical team; their help wasn't going to be on time. Sonia went outside screaming for help and miraculously reached the ears of someone with an up to date epipen.

The next injection with the stranger's fresh epipen bought enough time for the  medical team to reach Emily and stabilize her enough for airlift. Once at the hospital, Emily was in the ICU. She had the breathing tube removed by mid morning on Wednesday.  That evening he moved to a semiprivate room on a regular ward. Burning Man had suffered from torrential rains and flooding, Reno was full of dirty, battered Burners escaping the flood. All of the hotels were booked, but the casino hotels had space. We ate a good meal and stayed overnight at a casino near the hospital. 

Thursday Emily was discharged. Sonia drove Emily back to her home in Berkeley using Emily's camper van. She had outfitted the kitchen, sleeping area and everything else in the van during covid. We found Hotel Shattuck in Berkeley when the Marriott Residence Inn was full. The Shattuck is now our favorite place to stay. An old line hotel with charm and character, it's cheaper than the Marriott, has a much better restaurant and a location closer to Emily's house.

Emily's best friend Jessica came up to visit and guided Emily through the maze of Kaiser insurance to get the air lift and hospital care covered. Jess also motivated and guided Emily to set up further treatment for rehab as well as for tracking for down all the triggers of the anaphylactic shock reactions. 

I got back to the gym Saturday and thought I was getting back to my life. Emily was safe. She was setting up next steps at Kaiser to put things right with her life. My body was still able to do a gym workout after missing a night's sleep and 3 long hauls in 4 days. We both expected our bodies to complain for the physical abuse of the past week and felt rather better than expected Saturday. 

Then Lynn woke up Sunday will a killer headache, a cough and a fever. The home CoVid test said positive. The Urgent Care doctor started Paxlovid. A day later I was positive and on Paxlovid. 

The meds reduced the symptoms. I hope they stay gone after the 5 days of meds. I finished my last dose this morning.  Lynn finished her meds yesterday. I was downtown getting migraine meds for her this morning. 

TWTHTW