October is always slammed full of traveling to events. We had Cotee River Bike Festival which we always enjoy, hanging out with the crew at Little Corona Cigar Lounge and listening to the great music on 3 stages. We jump on the bike Sunday morning to head to Melrose for Howlin Wolf’s Throttles & Bottles with a great day of bikes, booze, bike games, and burnouts. While there, suddenly I was in excruciating pain on the right side of my stomach! TJ had to finish the photography of the burnouts and bike awards. The pain had me in tears but didn’t want to leave until the event was done. Now, we still had almost a 2-hour bike ride to get home!

I was scared having no idea if it was my appendix, ovary or gallbladder and Biketoberfest 3 days away! I just wanted to get home. I was holding my side, crunched over behind him, riding with my eyes closed when suddenly we were on a bumpy dirt road with signs that read ROAD CLOSED AHEAD with barricades out in the middle of nowhere. I wanted to kill him!! As he maneuvered through and around the barricades, I saw the ER sign just ahead. Without my knowledge, he decided I needed to go to Putnam Hospital. That was a BLESSING.

Sometime heroes are boyfriends on Harleys. There was no one at the ER so within 15 minutes of arriving I was in CT and relieved to find out it was kidney stones, not any of the dire things I had imagined. Kidney stones are no joke, but no surgery required. A pain shot, nausea meds, and IV fluids, made everything fine. I was able to get on the bike an hour later and ride home.

That night, watching the news, I felt so much sorrow for people living life in Israel, the Gaza Strip, West End, & Ukraine, because for reasons beyond the citizens control, their lives are in peril. What if you lived in a war-torn country and got sick with anything…normal life is going on: people get sick, hear horrible health news like cancer, drop dead of heart attacks, infant sudden death and yet the war is ravaging their country, their homes, their loved ones.

My biggest worry of the day was having to ride on the motorcycle for 2 hours in pain, not that a bomb might take out the hospital, no power, no water, etc. That is really f’cked up!! St. Jude’s has rescued all kids with cancer from Ukraine because there was no electricity to keep chemo at the right temperature or to power the hospitals. Listen, whether you are on the red side or blue side of politics we better start really paying attention to politics and love this country that we live in. We are more secure and safe than the rest of the world, and right now our President seems hell bent on changing that!!!

Pray for those in harm’s way, drink lots of water to keep kidney stones away & don’t forget your sunscreen!