On the 8th of February of this year, I went to have what I thought was a boil looked at that was on my neck. Initially, I went to my normal local family care center. But it quickly (after an hour wait) became apparent that I had something that was “above their pay grade” and had to be sent to the local hospital emergency room.

After waiting there for a few hours (patience is a virtue when you are a patient), it was determined that my hydrocephalic shunt and drain had become infected and needed to be evaluated by a neurological surgeon.

Since my local hospital doesn’t have neurological surgeons, I was sent to downtown Seattle to a hospital that had one on staff. There, it was determined that I would need to have surgery to remove the infected shunt and shunt drain.

All well and good. But I had planned for a two to three hour visit at the local clinic. Not a six day hospital stay. Silly me. I had a fully charged phone when I started the day, but by the end of the day, things were looking a little grim on the power front.

Suffice it to say, after I was paroled from the hospital, I decided to build a small bag of pieces that I could easily carry with me at all times that would allow me to keep my phone charged.

– First, on the advice of a world traveling friend, I picked up a power bank
– Next, because you can never have too many cables, I picked up a three pack of braided lightning cables since I currently use an iPhone XR.
– Third, I picked up a wall charger in case I had access to a wall outlet but my power brick wasn’t charged.
– Lastly, I picked up a few micro usb cables, in case someone was with me who needed juice as well but didn’t have a charger with them. Always try to remember others and it was an inexpensive purchase

Today, I realized it would be good to have something to tote this all around in, so I picked up a travel case organizer to keep it all organized and together.

I will keep this in my car, and should I run into a situation where, like above, I’m stuck somewhere unexpectedly, I will have power and be able to help those around me.