Sick? Just drag yourself through the snow!

The picture is of Keri and his friend Larry Myers standing in front of our snow machine just before they went hunting a week or so ago. Unfortunately, they didn’t get anything. How is it that this place is flat, with small trees and scrub brush, and yet the giant moose can hide so well? Just doesn’t make sense. They were rather frustrated. Especially when they got lost—three times. They ended up in a different village and went to a teacher’s house to warm up before heading back. Good thing they had a GPS to check, or they’d still be out there. They are going again this week when Keri gets back from Anchorage.

Taco (Jeremy) got sick, and it went straight to his chest. He missed two weeks of school because he had a horrible cough. The second week, I tried getting him into the clinic in either Alakanuk or Emmonak (a neighboring village), but there were so many people sick that I couldn’t get him in. Finally, after a week of trying, the clinic in Emmonak said they would work him in. (I think she felt sorry for me, because I called every day and I think she could hear Taco coughing in the background.)

So Keri took the morning off work, and we bundled up and climbed onto the snow machine to drive through the tundra in Arctic winter weather over the frozen Yukon River—to have our son checked for pneumonia. On what planet does that make sense?

The trip would have taken about 30 minutes, but we got lost—twice. So it took a little longer. Taco was sandwiched between Keri and I, and I had to reach around him every time I whacked Keri for getting us air born from driving too fast. But we made it.

Taco was put on antibiotics and steroids, and he is starting to get better now. (When he found out he was being put on a steroid, he said, “Cool! Does that mean I’ll get strong?”)