The strange stroy of Ashton and Janice

It was Sunday, August 16 and my Aunt Chris and I had decided to take Janice to St. Joseph Hospital because her back pain was so out of control. I had loaded Janice into the car, and was heading out to get in myself when our phone rang. I waited for the answering machine to pick up so I could see who it was, and I heard our daughter in law Monica. She said that she and Kevin had taken our youngest grandson Ashton to emergency at St. Joseph, and that he was heading in for emergency surgery, as his appendix had failed. Their whole family had booked a week in Hawaii for a vacation, and they were supposed to leave early the next morning.

I figured I could catch up with them at the hospital, since that is where I was heading. As we waited in emergency to get Janice admitted, Chris went to find Kevin, who by now was next door at CHOC Children's Hospital, which is where Ashton's surgery was about to begin. There was a bit of confusion for Kevin when he saw us. Initially he figured we were there to visit Ashton, but I filled him in on what was happening with Mom, and suddenly we were all on the family plan.

Ashton and Janice were in the hospital for almost the same amount of days, and both had successful outcomes. If you are going to have two members of your family have to go to emergency, it's nice to have them there at the same time. You can really maximize your visiting hours that way.

The photo is of the two of them the first day they were both home. Ashton had three small incisions on his belly, and Janice had three targets on her belly that they used for her radiation treatments. The two of them will always have a very, very special connection to one another from this.