Close Call

These owls have lived at the Kane County Court House for years and have had babies many times.

Since this is such a long post…I will treat you with some of the floral arrangements I finished this past week…….

Have you ever turned completely white and almost fainted....well that was me today when they called my name at about 2:00 this afternoon. We sat in the jury box, the hot seat, and replied to questions for approximately 2 hours.

The case was a medical malpractice suit with few details regarding the circumstances surrounding the death of a woman. I can only make inferences from what I heard and saw, so I really do not have any more information than that.

All I can say was, it was very a long, arduous process due to a very particular and detailed plaintiff's attorney.

I was called from the jurors box, into private session/chambers with regards to the questionnaire I filled out before being called as a juror. "Have you ever had any medical procedures that you were not satisfied with?" My answer was yes because as a young girl, approximately 16 years old, I had my tonsils removed.

In the recovery room my lungs collapsed. I turned blue because I could not breathe. My last thought was "I am going to die" as I banged on the side of the gurney. Obviously I did not die. I do remeber receiving a shot in the leg, tubes in my throat and then nothing after that point. I returned to my room much later that evening and was in hospital for approximately a week as I developed pneumonia and needed continued breathing treatments.

The anesthesiologist had left me in recovery before I was awake, so that he could do some Christmas shopping. He did not follow protocol and wait for to insure I would wake up. Although the event was terrifing, we never filed any law suit in this, but my father did make his emotions/feelings very clear to this anesthesiologist when he came to check on me the next morning. He had this terrible habit of jingling the change in his pocket and did it through the whole confrontation with my father.

Take a guess….I can not stand it when people shake the change in their pockets!!!

After revealing this story and answering as honestly as I could, that I would put aside my emotions regarding this event and be impartial as a juror, I was not dismissed.

Sitting in the "box" following my session in chambers, I reconciled in my own mind that I would be serving as a juror and I had to deal with the change in schedule.

The only reason I was not excited about this opportunity was the fact that this particular case would require us to be there every day until next Friday (I think May 6th).

Approximately an hour later and several other questions, I was released by one of the attorneys. I was out of the courthouse by 4:30, very relieved that I did not have to serve.

Please do not get me wrong...I would have loved to hear the whole story and watch the process play out. I am honored to be selected and at the same time very to those who committed to serving on this jury.

My life at home is all consuming because I have very strong convictions regarding my role as a mom. I do not know if that is good quality or a selfish one. The fact remains, serving for 9 or 10 days would have caused some hardship on our family.

The Accountant assured me they would have survived no matter what happened. I sincerely appreciate those sentiments and know that they would be just fine, families do it all the time and mine is no different.

To all of you working parents out there…my hat goes off to you and all that you give to your family.

To be fair, I did sit on a Coroner's Inquest approximately 3 years back. That was oh so very interesting and I would suggest if you have the stomach for "details", do it when you have the chance.

I do hope to be called as a Juror again... one day....just not when I have a First Communion Party scheduled the same weekend. Too much stress.