So close.

I’m sitting in a dark hospital room with Pierce, waiting for his 24 hour EEG to be over. To my knowledge, he was seizure free for the duration but I’ll learn more later this morning.

Wednesday night, as I was packing to come, Blaine was out working on my little Civic to do some maintenance on it. It’s been leaking power steering fluid and needed an oil change. He was almost done when a nut on a tensioner broke. As in… late at night, no way to get parts, and my transportation to St. Louis is out of commission.

Oof. Ok. Brainstorm. Google the height clearance of the parking garage. My 15 passenger van has racks on top that make it too tall to go through most drive throughs. It’ll never fit. I have no idea where I can park if I don’t use the parking garage. Maps isn’t helping. Blaine’s 12 passenger van is taller than the green van but doesn’t have the racks. It’s still pretty tall. It’s my only real option at this point.

I left early to give myself time to figure something out. I spent most of those minutes creeping up the parking garage. The clearance bar is marked 7’. I was right at that. I pulled under the bar to see. It bent my antenna down but didn’t scrape the van by maybe an inch. Maybe.

During the most nerve wracking moments I’ve had in a long time, I climbed four floors before I found an empty parking spot with clearance higher than 6’8”. I crept over speed bumps, because the bounce would have sent me into the concrete cross beams. It fit. I’m still nervous about taking it back out today. It’s so stinking close. So close.

We should get to leave later today. For now, coffee. I’m headed to find some.