Saturday, January 11, 2014

My Own Scary Friday

Today, I am in a grateful yet somewhat unsettled mood so my blog is the result of that.  Time will tell if it is a good thing or not!  :)

Yesterday morning I was sleeping soundly when my dear hubby woke me around 6:00 with the news that he was rather dizzy and could not lift his head off the pillow.  Apparently, he had gotten up around 5:00 and was very dizzy on his trip to the restroom.  He made it quietly back to bed so as to not wake me (silly man) but finally around 6:00 could stand it no more.  I took his blood pressure and nearly had my own heart attack when it registered at 180/120.  I called my wonderful sister who is an RN and she suggested I give him his blood pressure pill, let him rest and check it again in an hour.  I did that and hurried to get ready for a day I had no clue what would hold for us.  An hour later I checked it again and it was still the same.  I called her back and we decided to hold off until the doctor's office opened at 8 and go from there.  But then, Dave decided he needed to go back to the restroom so I helped him sit up on the side of the bed where he promptly passed out.  As I watched his eyes glaze over and he would not respond to me, my heart and mind went to places which scared me senseless.  I made the decision to take him down to Indy to the hospital where my sister works because I knew if there was a problem, Sandy would be able to help decipher all the medical jargon.  Bless Andrew's heart, he flew in here and helped me get Dave in the car and off we headed to ER.

Dave always has a sense of humor and this time was no exception.  I am pretty sure the nurses and doctors there felt this patient was clearly off his rocker.  Pretty much everyone who walked into the room was promptly asked some question that had to do with pizza.  I knew this was the real Dave but I am convinced the doctor felt there had to be something serious going on because of that, his slurred speech and his inability to touch his nose with his right hand.  On his second try at that little chore, he asked the doctor who moved his nose.  Yes, I am quite serious about that! 

I shall digress here to say that a young girl from the reception area stopped in to just make sure she had all his correct information.  She asked me what my name was and Dave promptly corrected my by saying, "Her name is Pretty Girl" because that is what he calls me.  I looked down at him with one of my "looks" and he said, "Well at least I didn't call you a loser like the last time".  All air got sucked out of the room AGAIN.  See, several years ago Dave had surgery and to say he did not tolerate the anesthesia well is an understatement.  When a nurse from our church came to get me and I walked up to his bed, he looked at the nurses and said, "That's my wife - she is such a loser".  Every ounce of oxygen was sucked out of that room!  I was given the wonderful opportunity to explain that I was going to Weight Watchers and after every weigh in, I would call him to tell him what I lost and he always said "You are such a loser".  It was NEVER meant in a mean, ugly way but rather his way of being proud of me.  Once I explained it to the nurses they saw the humor in it as well.  This time, I was pretty sure that young girl came close to having a heart attack!  :)

On to the rest of the story....the doctor ordered some blood work and an MRI which thankfully all came back normal.  What we finally determined was that Dave had become severely dehydrated which caused his blood pressure to go dangerously high which caused severe dizziness.  It took a few hours for everything to calm down and we were back home by 3:00 in the afternoon.  He will be seeing his regular doctor for some follow up and to hopefully get some answers to a few remaining questions we have but all is well at this point and for that we are grateful! 

This whole scenario has me thinking about how blessed I truly am.  Earlier in the day as we were waiting for Dave to be taken for his MRI, I heard these words from across the hall - "Yes he will survive but he will be paralyzed".  I was so worried and nervous about Dave and yes, there were the thoughts of what could have been or what might have happened but instead, we were walking out the door.  It was a scary day and one that I am glad is over but yet has taught me to slow down and remember the things that matter!
  

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

A New Year


Being as how the white stuff you see in the picture above is preventing me from leaving the house, what better way to spend my time than to update the ole blog.  I have not left this house since Saturday evening which has actually been pretty nice.  Christmas decorations were taken down, some furniture was moved around a bit and some extra cleaning has been done.  I actually thought I would be going to work at noon today but we are still in a level one emergency which means no one should be out and about.  I am not really complaining one little bit.

So - it is the new year.  Time for new beginnings, new resolutions, new goals, new "whatever else you want to say" and I am doing some deep thinking about these things.  I am usually not one to make goals or resolutions public and this will be no exception.  Some things just are not for public viewing.  I know there can be both good and bad from not sharing these things.  Some would say that if you don't tell anyone then you have no accountability and that is a valid point.  But for me, I am keeping most of my goals to myself. However, there are a few that I am going to talk about here.

One is that I am asking the Lord to help me pray specifically about things.  It is one thing to pray each day in general but I believe the Lord is asking me to pray about some specifics.  Naturally, praying specifically about ME is first on the list which will probably take all my time. :)  Second, I am praying for specific things regarding each of my kids.  Sorry - David, Christa, Josh, Carrie, Andrew and Ashley but your lives could be getting interesting!  :)  On the serious side, if I don't pray for my children then I can't complain about them!  :)  I am also going to be praying specifically about other things as they come up.  I just feel like God desires His children to ask for and BELIEVE Him for specific things and that is what I am doing. 

Another goal I have is to read more.  I have iBooks on my phone and have downloaded some good books for me to read.  Also, Dave would probably want me to point out that he has 4 book cases jammed full of books and could really use another one!  :)  I have been working on reading my Bible chronologically which has been really neat to do.  I just think I can profit greatly by reading so that is another thing I am going to work on.  Who knows, maybe I will do a book review or two here.  

One final thing I may or may not do is to update my blog more frequently.  I mostly use Facebook to communicate with friends and family but I can't write a book as a status update.  :)  So, I may just be writing here as an "outlet" for what little creativity I have and just general expressions of food, fun, faith and foolishness!  :)

Happy New Year Everyone!