Beth went to Washington this week. Alex has not been doing very well lately; he’s had persistent low grade pain in his plumbing and recently may have passed a kidney stone, although I suspect it was something else. He’s been to a clinic a couple times and they’ve never found anything wrong with him, but it’s persisted and he’s been super anxious about it for a long time now. I also suspect the anxiety has a lot to do with it, but the pain is real and it isn’t going away, and the anxiety was becoming a real problem lately. So, we made a way for Beth to go out there this week and see him and help him get some answers. Sometimes you just need your mom. So on Thursday the 14th I took most of the day off to drive Beth to O’Hare and sent her to Seattle. She got there fairly early in the day but Alex was able to pick her up, and the next day they went to an ER. After an hour or two, they could tell him that there were no abnormalities they could find, no cancer, no kidney stones, no infection, and they gave him a referral to a urologist which we will try to make when he’s home for break. Beth said it was like the weight of the world coming off him and he seemed so much better when they were done. Still no answers but he seemed more like himself. They had dinner with Scott and Alex showed her around the town a bit, and they went to see “The Wild Robot” which they both loved. Meanwhile, Natalie and I watched the big Mike Tyson – Jake Paul boxing match… which was kind of a joke…. and I raked a lot of leaves, made the other shed door, and made a lot of soup. Alex dropped Beth off at SeaTac early afternoon Sunday, and I headed back to Chicago to pick her up … at midnight. We got back home pretty late, like 3:00 am.

Earlier in the week: on Monday Beth finally went to see a doctor about being sick. She’s felt awful for most of the past week, like a bad cold that keeps getting worse. So, unsurprisingly, at the doctor she was diagnosed with a raging sinus infection. Sounds about right. Hopefully she can get back to making soup soon, because she needs to!