I-75 is the seventh ring of Hell

I was born in this city, raised in this city and except for the decade or so I spent in the D.C./Baltimore area, I've lived in this city. But as hard as I try, I cannot drive in this city.
I don't know where anything is, how to get there or how one road relates to another, and quite frankly at my age I have no desire to learn. I say this as an illustration of how much I must love my sister, D., that this morning, in pouring down rain and rush hour traffic I drove from I-285S to I-20W to (arghhh!) I-75N to make my way to Piedmont Hospital to see her.
Just two nights earlier, unbeknownest to me, she spent 24 hours in the ICU. I just assumed they'd moved her from the ER to a regular room, but she'd only been out of intensive care since yesterday.
I arrived at room 227 with irises and lillies in hand (per the florist's suggestion I didn't bring anything overly fragrant in case the patient had "smell issues"), and I was expecting to see my sister pale and frail with tubes sticking out of her arms, nose and chest. I was pleasantly surprised to see she was up and moving, though understandably slower than usual. Her color was good and she gave me a big hug. About five minutes into the visit the nurse came in to give her more shots than I've had in my entire life, including one in her tummy.
The best news for me was that her sense of humor was intact and she seemed ready and eager to fight this beast.
What landed her in the ER, it seems, was not the cancer, not the RSDS but rather an infection from where she had the biopsy of her adrenal glands. The pain killers she was on weren't effective against the pain from the infection. Don't ask me where my sister (she of the GED) got her medical degree, but she decided at some point that if she took more blood pressure medication perhaps the pain killers would work better. This caused her blood pressure to drop to a dangerously low level and the doctor told her that when she was in the ER she was "circling the drain." I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to metaphors but I know that's not good.
Our visit wasn't long enough since I had reenter traffic purgatory and pick my kids up from school. She seemed happier than I'd seen her in a while, cute in her pink P.J.s and adamant about wanting to get a second opinion and to see if clinical trials were available at Emory. We made plans to get her fitted for a wig next week and then hugged goodbye.

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