Yesterday I tried to talk an Uber driver into taking $200 to drive me from Washington, DC to Norfolk, VA because I had a family emergency. Along the way, I got a better understanding for the stress and sense of urgency displayed by the mom from Home Alone when she was in a similar situation. But let’s go back to the beginning first.

”
“And I don’t care if I have to get out on your runway and hitchhike! If it costs me everything I own, if I have to sell my soul to the devil himself, I am going to get home to my son!” (or wife, in my case)

Let me start off with two things. First: this is entirely factual. Second: my wife is doing well in the hospital and is looking like she is on the path to recovery. I felt that was important to note because this story is meant to be humorous (retrospectively, extremely stressful in the moment) and that can only be the case with an ending that is, at the very least, optimistic for future well-being of my loved ones.

That being said, this weekend was supposed to be an awesome (Get it? Well, you will.) experience for me. Having recently partnered up with my friend Tara Moeller, the head of the DreamPunk Press co-op (a small publishing group in my area), I was all set to bring my Toonopolis books to AwesomeCon in Washington, DC under the DreamPunk Press banner alongside the rest of the DreamPunk library. I’d never been to AwesomeCon, as an author or as a fan, so I was very excited to say the least.

Those little green tubes are only 5-9cm long in an average adult female. Didn’t think you were gonna learn anything in this blog post, huh?

A few weeks before the event, my wife had to schedule a surgery for a bile duct issue (the tubes connecting your organs like gallbladder, liver, pancreas, etc.). So yeah, guess when the surgery was? Thursday, the day before MarsCon. No big deal, my wife and I presume. It’s a simple outpatient procedure and she should be home and resting by the evening. The DreamPunk Press team would go up to DC Thursday evening to get set up, I’d take a train from Norfolk to DC Friday morning and be a little late to the start of the first day but otherwise be there to man the table, sell books, and try out a new cosplay (Greg Universe from Steven Universe!). Plan set. All parties on board.

Proceed to the day of the surgery. Everything goes fine, doctor is happy with the procedure, my wife goes into recovery and we are just waiting for anesthesia to wear off and her pain to be controlled. Only her pain never got controlled adequately so they opt to admit her to the hospital for observation, run a few scans, check some bloodwork, and she’d likely go home the next day. This leaves my wife and I with a dilemma: should I travel to DC the next morning? After evaluation and discussion, we decide that I would in fact go but keep in touch. Her parents were around for childcare backup, she was just waiting out her weird pain issues, and she’d probably go home Friday afternoon.

Apparently the white part in the circled area is not supposed to light up. Hers did. Fun times.

So I hop on my train from Norfolk at 9am Friday morning (after getting all three kids off to school so they were covered for the day), and thus begins the real adventure that would end up with me approximately thirteen of the subsequent thirty-three hours traveling between Norfolk and DC. At about 9:30am, I receive a phone call from my wife that the doctors may want to do more surgery but weren’t sure. Her gallbladder was apparently retaining the IV contrast used during the surgery. I don’t know what this means but she sent me a picture and told me “that white part isn’t supposed to be visible on X-Ray”.

So at this point, I have 4.5 hours left on my train ride to DC to worry about what this might mean for my wife, am already late to the beginning of the convention, and not even sure if I am going to have to turn right back around and go home (or jump off the train, hobo style somewhere in the middle of Virginia). We opted for me to go the Con and just stay in touch in case another surgery was necessary or something else went amiss.

After arriving in DC around 1:30pm, I get to the convention, get set up, throw on my Ash Ketchum costume, and find our table, which was awesome and the first time I got to use my new Toonopolis freestanding banner! Check it out:

The DreamPunk Press team has fantasy and sci-fi books ranging from middle grade to adult on this table. Cause that’s how we roll.