Mr. Somner here. The Droning Voice took a prolonged break after learning there appeared to be no way to monetize her great idea of boringly reading old out-of-copyright books to help people go to sleep.

Oh well. It was a thought.

But now, we find ourselves at The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The Droning Voice herself has fallen victim to both:

• A horrible situation unfolding in her abdomen
• Healthcare where she lives

In October she started feeling like crap. Specifically, she was experiencing acute and severe pain in her abdomen. After a while she called the doctor, who would not see her for far too long. Before that time was up, she chose to go to Urgent Care to get some more, well, urgent care.

In Urgent Care, they immediately sent her to the Emergency Room. In the ER they screened her for her obvious acute severe abdominal pain, and ordered a CT scan. The CT scan revealed a mass on her pancreas. Although they did not give us a copy of the CT report at the time, it read, “… highly concerning for primary pancreatic malignancy ….”

This is on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, November 30. Let’s call this [Day 1]. Her doctor’s appointment was yet to come on December 6 [Day 7]. Recall she had made that appointment a long time before, and went to Urgent Care out of desperation.

This is the start of absolute Healthcare Hell, which I am recapping here for the benefit of anyone interested in the details.