When Things Go Wrong

What I learned from a non-life-threatening emergency that took over our entire life.

I never really relax, and we know this.

My Chiron is in Gemini basically says, If you rest, you will be forgotten. And while there is obviously a lot to unpack there- what I do know is that whether we are talking about my career, my friendships, my marriage, motherhood or simply my inability to sit down, I am not exactly known for existing in a restful state.

I try. I really do. I move energy. I work out. I meditate. I take anxiety medication. I buy magnesium.

I run at a higher frequency.

Still, I want to slow down.

After going through one of the hardest seasons of my life, a season I will be sharing more and less about, because both can be true, I decided to plan a little work and play trip to Nashville to see some of my favorite people.

It was supposed to be 2 nights. First, my photoshoot! Then, a spa morning, lunch, a full day out with my friends and 8 consecutive hours of sleep.

I know. The ambition…

Thursday 5:00 a.m.

I woke up, put on a cute outfit, grabbed a sugar free peach Red Bull and posted a little airport video like the woman I believed I was about to become: carefree, hot, well-rested, traveling alone and perhaps even capable of reading more than 4 pages of a book without checking Slack.

To be honest, it took so much for me to actually go.

The entire week leading up to the trip, I found reasons I should cancel. I decided the timing was wrong, it was too indulgent, it was too complicated, the family needed me, work needed me and perhaps the nation itself would be placed in jeopardy by my brief absence.

But I woke up. I got on the plane. I did the damn thing.

I got the spray tan and painted my nails Voodoo Green, which I never would have chosen for myself, except my friend Leah texted me a picture of the color and said, “This would look so good on you.” ***Girls’ girl status, by the way.

So off to Nashville I went, happy as a clam and blissfully unaware that the universe was warming up a 10-day vaudeville show involving kidney stones, surgery, an infection, antibiotics, multiple emergency-room visits, 3 separate incidents of projectile vomiting and one public emotional breakdown on the floor of CVS.

Thursday 1:00 p.m.

When I landed, I was scooped up by Bunny’s black car service, which was a very nice touch, and dropped at the hotel I had splurged on using Amex points.

A beautiful room.

A bed entirely to myself.

I walked in and felt this enormous wave of relief move through me, like, You deserve this. You work so hard. You can relax.

So naturally, I immediately opened my laptop and started working.

I had planned one afternoon and evening of work before the play day, so I fired off Slack messages, put on my playlist and got into the zone until hair and makeup arrived, and then Bunny arrived, and the afternoon became one of those memories that glows around the edges while it is still happening.

They transformed me into the most beautiful I have maybe ever felt.

We ate dinner and drove to the photo shoot, which was on a boat in Nashville, because apparently Tennessee is full of lakes.

We met my friends Katie and Jody, along with the most badass photographer, and likely the only photographer I ever want to work with again, Anna Haas.

These photos, you guys.

Just wait.

The shoot was hot, and I mean that in every possible interpretation of the word. Afterward, we went out, I had a burger and extra drinks, life was good, and I Ubered back to my hotel feeling deeply grateful and exhausted.

I called Clay, said goodnight and informed my Oura Ring out loud that we would be getting 8 full hours of sleep.

Tomorrow was the play day.

Spa morning. Lunch. A full day out with my friends.

Nothing could stop me.

Friday 3:00 a.m.

Hard cut to my phone ringing from a deep sleep.

It was my husband, and he was in excruciating pain.

I was still drunk, half asleep and immediately bargaining with reality. Please let this be a dream, a joke or a very dramatic bad fart.

He needed to get to the emergency room immediately.

It took me 30 seconds to turn on every light in the hotel room, chug a bottle of water and move into the mode I know best: the one where there is a problem, everyone else is panicking and I become the calmest and most capable version of myself.

“Go,” I said. “Get in the car and go to the ER. Can you drive yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then go. Go, go, go.”

I pulled up both kids on the Nanit and told him I would watch them from Nashville, stay awake and find someone to get into the house before they woke up if he was not home.

Clay stayed on speakerphone while he drove, my children slept on my screen, and my nervous system came online in a way that could not be described as gentle.

This began the next 10 days of what I now like to call: when everything goes wrong.

It was serious enough to take over our lives, but not serious enough for anyone else to take over our lives for us.

A very specific category of fun.

Friday Around 3:30 a.m.

Clay was vomiting out the window and yelling in pain, and I was trying to determine whether he needed to pull over, whether he was about to pass out and whether I was about to listen to my husband crash a car from a hotel room in another state.

That was the first moment real fear kicked in.

Until then, it had felt horrible but contained. Suddenly, my brain was sprinting ahead of reality, asking what I would do if the phone disconnected, what I would do if he lost consciousness and whether there was some kind of emergency service I could summon from Nashville.

I sobered up very, very quickly.

I also puked alongside him.

True romance.

Nothing says a decade of partnership like synchronized vomiting across time zones.

He made it to the emergency room, and I stayed on the phone until he had physically walked through the doors. Once I knew he was safely inside, I switched into kid mode, because there were 2 tiny people asleep in my house who had absolutely no idea their father had just left for the ER.

Friday 3:45–4:30 a.m.

I went through the list of usual suspects.

Do Not Disturb.

Airplane mode.

Do Not Disturb.

Yes, I called twice.

Nothing.

My nanny was sleeping because it was her day off. My closest friends and neighbors were out of town. I called my mentor. I called my IV guy, who is also my friend, to be fair. I messaged my kids’ school app.

I texted my parents and sister, who were vacationing in Italy and having the time of their lives. They were medium helpful, but they were awake because of the time difference, and it felt good to at least have people witnessing the situation.

Time was moving fast, and based on the sounds Clay was making, this was clearly not going to be an in-and-out ER visit.

Finally, I opened the WhatsApp thread for our neighborhood.

Everyone should have one of these. Oh my God.

Our HOA has one, and I started going down the list, calling one stranger-but-technically-neighbor at a time until someone finally answered.

“Oh my God, it’s Krista. I am so sorry to call this early.”

She told me it was okay and that she was awake, but she was on the East coast.

Of course.

But she knew everyone. I had called the right person, and she could hear the desperation in my voice when I said, “We have to get someone into my house before my kids wake up. No one is there.”

My neighbor said, “I know who will answer. Let me call her. You know Sherri and Paul, with the dog?”

“Oh my God, yes.”

For someone who does not know more than a few of my neighbors, I knew them. I loved them. I had never loved anyone with a dog more.

“Yes. I know them. Please.”

Within minutes, the 3 of us were on a text chain.

Women.

Give thanks for women.

Friday Around 5:00 a.m.

My neighbor got into the house and texted me a photo of my cat from the living room.

I watched the kids wake up through the Nanit. Max was happy as can be, and my daughter told our neighbor that she looked like her Nana and seemed to find this entire surprise visitor situation delightful.

My children were fine.

Perfect, actually.

It turns out children can wake up to a kind neighbor instead of a parent and simply accept that this is what the day has planned, which was a helpful reminder that sometimes I am the person least adaptable to changes in my children’s schedule.

Friday Around 6:00 a.m.

I needed to get home.

Clay might need surgery, and my anxiety had already constructed a complete scenario in which he would be taken into an operating room while I was somewhere over Kansas and something terrible would happen.

I opened my laptop with Clay still on speakerphone and booked the next flight home. It left at 11:15 a.m., which gave me about two and a half hours before I needed to leave for the airport.

So I got into the shower.

I stood under the hot water, prayed, breathed and tried to return to my body.

Eventually, my friends woke up and the messages started arriving.

“How can we help?”

“I can be there in 10 minutes.”

“I’ll drive Kepi to school.”

“I’ll take Max.”

The cavalry had awakened.

My daughter was scooped up with her lunch and her best friend and delivered to school like the little queen she is. My nanny woke up, changed her entire day around on her day off and went to stay with Max until I could get home.

I got dressed, texted everyone I had to leave, ordered an Uber and headed to the airport.

By the time I arrived around 10:00 a.m., the hospital had sent Clay home with pain medication and the news that he had 5 kidney stones to pass.

He was still in horrific pain, and my friend quickly assessed that he could not be left alone with the kids, which meant the weekend was already becoming something very different from the one any of us had planned.

Friday

Somewhere between Nashville and Denver

I got on the plane and decided to close my eyes for a minute.

When I opened them, I ordered a Diet Coke, connected to Wi-Fi and discovered a stream of messages from my family in Italy and from Clay.

Kepi had projectile-vomited at school and needed to be picked up.

Perfect.

Abigael would go get her, I told myself. I would be home in a few hours.

I leave for approximately fourteen hours… all hell breaks loose.

The timing was so absurd that it almost felt personally designed by the universe to confirm every fear I have ever had about leaving. My therapist will love this one, I thought.

Friday afternoon and Saturday

I landed, got into an Uber, arrived home to the chaos and stepped back into gear.

I thanked Abigael, sent her home, checked on Clay and told my team I would see them Monday.

The rest of Friday and most of Saturday are honestly a blur of caring for Clay, keeping the kids alive, doing the house things, hanging with neighbors and operating on almost no sleep.

I had left for Nashville expecting a spa robe.

Sometimes a plot twist really commits.

Sunday Morning

By Sunday, Clay’s pain was next level. He was moaning so loudly that I had to keep the kids out of the house, and although I had been told kidney stones are extremely painful, there is a point after several days when hearing another adult moan continuously begins to test both your compassion and your auditory processing capacity.

Marriage contains multitudes.

I called the emergency room and urology, explained what was happening and was told that because it had been 3 days and the stones had not passed, he needed to come back in.

So we loaded our entire family into the car and drove to the ER on a Sunday morning because I wanted to be there to advocate for him.

We looked like quite a scene.

We were sitting in the room talking to the doctor, Max on my lap, when he suddenly projectile-vomited all over me and the entire room.

At this point, all four members of our family had vomited.

Solidarity.

So there we were, covered in vomit, while the doctor finally told us that the scan showed one of the stones was blocking things and Clay needed surgery, ideally that day.

It was around 10:00 a.m. The kids were exhausted. I kissed and hugged Clay, got them back into the car and called my mother-in-law.

Clay needed his mom. I needed help.

Thank God for moms.

She would land at 7:00 p.m.

Clay would be in surgery by noon.

Sunday Noon to 5:00 p.m.

I panic-cleaned the entire house. My husband was in surgery and no matter how minor, it’s not not stressful.

Eventually, I got the call that Clay was out. They had removed the stone causing the blockage and placed a stent.

He was recovering, and we could come see him and potentially bring him home around 5:00 p.m.

Sunday 5:00 p.m.

It was one hundred degrees outside when the kids and I arrived at the hospital.

Clay was nauseated, in enormous pain and clearly not ready to go home. Max vomited again, this time all over the hospital room.

Just a scene.

Eventually, we decided the children and I should leave and return for Clay later.

I took them home, made dinner, put Max to bed and waited for my mother-in-law to arrive.

Kepi was over the moon to see her, which meant I could finally go back to the hospital alone and collect my husband.

He was doing better, although “better” was doing a lot of work in that sentence, and I helped him into the car, drove him home and got him settled on the couch.

For a moment, everyone was home.

We were deeply grateful.

Monday Early morning

By Monday morning, Clay could barely get up, and somehow the hospital had sent him home after surgery without actually making sure his pain medication was available.

I dropped Kepi at school, left Max with my mother-in-law and drove to CVS so I could be first in line.

First, they told me they could not find the prescription.

Then they found it but said they could not fill it because they were trying to learn a new machine or app or system created specifically to prevent suffering people from receiving medication.

Then they said it would be ready at 4:00 p.m.

And I cried.

They called the supervisor, who was a man, and as we know, men hate to see women authentically crying in public, and so he pushed it through immediately.

No problem. Unbelievable.

So I sat there catching my breath in CVS while the prescription was filled, looking like a woman who had recently been on a glamorous boat photo shoot only if you had an extremely generous imagination.

Monday through Wednesday

The next few days became a strange combination of work, meetings, momming, managing the children’s routines with my mother-in-law and caring for Clay, who did not seem to be getting any better.

I was able to rent a room at my coworking space to teach a big workshop in partnership with Circle, more on this soon, and it was a moment, of really asking for support, leaning on others, and being fully present in each moment to pull this off. And I am so proud of myself for it.

Here I am after my event:

The pain remained so intense that, by some point in the middle of the week, I began privately questioning how much pain he could possibly still be in.

I was tired.

At one point I thought, Let me feel the pain. Let me just feel it for one second. Hand it over. I would like to audit it.

I know.

Back to compassion.

The pain continued, so I called the ER and the urologist again, and they told him to come back in.

I sent Clay and his mom to the hospital while I handled bedtime.

Sure enough, he had developed an infection.

Antibiotics.

More pain.

More downtime.

Yay.

Thursday

It was back to me and the kids, hanging out with the neighbors, thank God for neighborhood friends, and somehow continuing to work.

I showed up. I moved things forward. I made the lunches, handled the drop-offs, did the meals, gave the baths, read every bedtime story, answered the messages and kept our lives moving.

My anxiety is constantly warning me that I am one small disruption away from collapse, yet when the disruption actually came, I held so much more than it had ever given me credit for.

Friday

By Friday, Clay was grumpy and beginning to feel depressed, while I was starting to lose sight of what day it was, what we were doing or whether there had ever been a world outside of pain medication schedules and kids’ lunches.

Clay is the primary parent in our family.

He has been the primary parent for years, and this week made his role visible in a completely new way because suddenly I was doing every single part of it.

Every lunch.

Every meal.

Every drop-off.

Every bedtime story.

Normally, he carries the majority of that while I work a lot, particularly right now, and it was strange to step fully into his world and realize both how much he does and that I could do it too.

Meanwhile, Clay had reached the point where he was furious because no one from urology would answer him or offer an earlier appointment to remove the stent.

I could not handle listening to this situation continue, so I called again.

I spoke to the best woman named Maddy and explained that my husband had now been out of commission for over a week, that he was still in enormous pain and discomfort, that I was completely exhausted and that we desperately needed to know the earliest possible time the stent could come out.

“Monday at 1:00 p.m., ma’am.”

Thank you.

Once again, I advocated for him.

Once again, it worked.

Watching the Ultimatum all weekend

Monday Stent removal day

And here we are.

Monday morning.

Everyone is okay.

This was not a life-threatening emergency.

It was also not nothing.

It was more like a pinprick than a knife, especially compared with some of what we have already lived through together.

But life is made of pinpricks.

The plans that fall apart. The calls in the middle of the night. The illnesses that are not catastrophic but take over the entire house. The person you love being in pain for 10 straight days.

These are the things we are always preparing for without knowing what they will look like.

Then they happen, and somehow we do them.

My anxiety spends so much time warning me that I will not be able to handle what is coming, and this week reminded me that I can.

I can handle so much.

My family can handle so much.

Our village can hold us when we cannot hold everything alone.

We are built for more than our fear allows us to imagine.

All is well.

10 things I learned when everything went wrong:

1. My anxiety seriously underestimates me.

2. Rest does not make bad things happen.

3. A village is built before you need it.

4. Women know how to enter an emergency.

5. Asking for help is a skill, and desperation makes you fluent.

6. Advocacy is necessary & crying helps.

7. Caregiving can contain love & resentment at the same time.

8. The primary parent is holding an entire invisible operating system.

9. Children are incredibly adaptable, and also they will projective vomit at the least convenient moment.

10. We can do hard things without turning them into a tragedy.

-Said the Gemini