Unscheduled but Unbothered - Part 5

All Dr. Whitehead said before we left was to go to Mayo. Evan remembers getting a phone number from him for a doctor down there, but that was it. There was no paperwork. We spent the rest of the evening figuring out what we were supposed to do while also ruining the evening of more people we love by calling them with the terrible news and trying to get the boys down for bed.

We arranged childcare for Benji, but Noah would have to join in on the party because I still didn’t have any milk reserves. I could have left him with some formula, but he’d never had any and only used a bottle once or twice. All of my very rational fear about Evan spilled over into a host of irrational fears that Noah would refuse a bottle or get a tummy ache from the formula and then his already challenging little life would be made even worse by his mother’s negligence. I didn’t have the spare worrying space; it was all allotted for Evan. So the baby was going to the hospital with me.

Because we were taking Noah, we figured it was a good idea to bring Evan’s parents along. If the day at Mayo went anything like the day we’d just had, there was a good chance we would absentmindedly leave Noah in his stroller somewhere on the Mayo campus while we wandered in a half-brain-dead state back to the car. So we invited Evan’s parents to go with us to the Mayo appointments that were not at all scheduled yet.

Evan got Mayo people on the phone while I stared out the windshield on the way home from the island, occasionally answering Benji’s questions and snaking my arm behind me to stick Noah’s paci back in his mouth.

“My name is Evan Beard. 10-2-94. Yes. Yes, I’m supposed to be coming down for some appointments. No, I’m not sure with who. No, I haven’t sent anything in. I can get those to you.”