Monday morning was a scheduled hospital visit. I always help myself where I can… usually I look for opportunities to serve others and my favorite service to render is the service I am not asked to do. I’m stubborn like that but I also realize that it’s probably just as hard for others to ask for help as it is for me to ask. Maybe mine are the only eyes that see a need and so I try to take care of things that I see I can help with. My favorite acts of service have been anonymous and I still smile thinking about those things I’ve done as I imagine peoples surprise. Of course I don’t see everything and willingly help when asked if I can. But we’re taught self-reliance and I strive for that. I firmly believe the world would be a better place if more people bought into this school of thought. That being said, no man is an island and service rendered blesses the lives of everyone involved no matter which end of it you are on.
So in true form I got up Monday very early this week; the day Rick was scheduled to go in to the hospital to have his achalasia treated under general anesthesia. The treatment is not the easiest thing for the body to go through but we were assured that after several hours of a hospital stay we would be on our way to pick up our younger kids from our friend’s house and then our older kids from school. So back to early… I got up very early and made some yeast rolls which I figured I could force along with a warm oven decreasing their rise time. Not only were these for dinner but would serve for sandwich rolls the following day as I had no time to make bread too and I was saving the emergency loaf in the freezer for a real emergency. I had salad ready in the fridge and put the spaghetti sauce in the crockpot. Rick of course would not be allowed to drive, Tristan had running after school which would get me home to prepare dinner a little on the late side and would only give me half an hour to eat, change diapers and clean up before I had to be out the door again with all the kids to attend an orchestra concert; a final test grade for the 3rd quarter for my high school student. I’ve done this many times before and felt confident that I had done all I could to be prepared for my day.
I dropped my youngest kids off with the expectation I’d be back for them mid-afternoon but stuck a few extra diapers in the bag and a change of clothes just as a precaution for anything that might occur. Things went smoothly and as expected once we checked into Good Samaritan Hospital in the late morning. My husband was just about to be wheeled away and I said to him “well, I’d tell you to have a good time but…” and the nurse chuckled “yeah, what do you say to someone right about now”. My husband’s response with a smile was “well, I DID hear their were some balloons involved” and he got a chuckle out of everyone. I have to admire my husband’s sense of humor and that is how I left him. I went out into the hallway to read and enjoy my bottle of water. Halfway through the wait the fire alarm went off… this should have been my cue to the luck I was about to have.
After an hour and a half of waiting they called me into recovery to sit by Rick’s side. This proved to be a slow go and I spent several hours by his side; some of it reading and some of it answering his same questions over and over again as he was in and out of consciousness. I was starting to get concerned about picking up my children. My girls could sit with security and Tristan was running til 5 p.m. I called my friend Rachel, who had my youngest two and told her it looked like we were running late and I’d probably have to pick the kids up around dinner time after I retrieved kids from school. She had somewhere to be but thankfully her husband was taking off work early so he could watch them just in case or she could take the kids with her if needed. I told her I’d be there as soon as possible.
Waiting, waiting, waiting, the clock edging to 4 p.m. I was starting to worry I’d have to just leave and go get the kids and figure out how to come back for Rick. His blood pressure 110/63 when we arrived was now 154/110 and his heart rate was floating between 58 and 48. Both of these numbers were setting his alarms off. As soon as his numbers were edging the right direction they asked him if he was ready to go. I had to get going one way or the other or I was going to have a couple of schools on my case. I needed to get my kids. Rick decided he felt well enough to leave and they wheeled him down to the car. We had picked three of our kids from two different schools and were headed through Northside on our way to go pick up the last two from Rachel’s when Rick got really super irritable with the kids. The last thing he said was that he wasn’t feeling good. Then he started to wobble. I asked him if he was OK and got no answer, though his eyes were open. I called his name several times as I tried to look at him while navigating the rush hour traffic. I was getting no response from him. Frantically I announced I was headed to Emergency back at the hospital as he went into seizure activity for several city blocks and then vomited all over the car before regaining consciousness. It was terrifying. As I U-turned I called Rachel’s husband to let him know I was headed to the ER and didn’t know when I’d be back now. Not to worry, the children were in good hands. Thank goodness for friends. GOOD friends as this day turned into a marathon. I called the conductor at school to let him know that Haley would not be in attendance to her concert. Though we were close enough to the school she had no concert clothes and it would have just given me another person to worry about picking up somewhere else all over again. I couldn’t do that. I raced into the emergency room looking for the nearest person to help me. A volunteer came right up to me and I explained the situation. He took a wheel chair out to the car and as he reached out to help my husband from the car into the chair they realized they knew each other; this was a former math teacher of Rick’s. I never go anywhere without someone knowing my husband. Rick feebly asked him how he was doing and this old guy’s response was “well, I’m helping YOU into a wheelchair”. I got the kids going on homework out in the waiting area and called my in-laws who live about 30 minutes away to let them know how things were. I figured they were waiting to hear, might be concerned and maybe they could maybe get my kids some food as it was now well-past dinner time. None of my kids would be allowed to go back into the ER either and Haley was given the instruction to keep an eye on everyone in the waiting area and take care of things on that front. I followed Rick back with the Dr’s and nurses and we re-registered with the hospital. He was in pain and looked the color of ash. First they hooked him up and did his first EKG. They did a full blood panel and wheeled him off to X-ray to do his third and fourth chest X-rays of the day. They had already made sure nothing was perforated. Now they were checking to make sure nothing inside had become perforated. That would call for emergency surgery of which we knew was a 5% risk factor. One by one, things were coming back normal. My father-in-law brought me a cold bag of food and as it was so late I left my husband with his parents. It was well past bedtime and I had two little children to rescue and five kids who needed to get home and get to bed. It would be hours before all would be accomplished as it was. I dropped my older three off to start cycling through our single bathroom, pulled the car mat out of the car and tossed it into the backyard and then went a couple miles down the road to pick up Kaitlyn and Nathan.
A few hours later my husband was released to his parents with the diagnoses for umpteenth time of having vasomotor or vasovagal syncope. This tends to happen with him when he has low blood sugar and is under stress but of course he needed to be checked out after undergoing an extensive procedure and general anesthesia. I am less than thrilled that this happens to him so often since it can be very dangerous. I worry about him. This reaction has happened several times to him before I knew him but I didn’t experience it with him for years until he was 29 and now it seems to be happening with more frequency. This is the third time he has presented with a vasovagal reaction in the past 1 1/2 years. I had just finally gone to sleep with only 4 1/2 hours till it was time to get up when Rick jumped out of bed and started vomiting again. All in all I got under 3 hours of interrupted sleep before the alarm went off at 5 a.m. Time to start another day.
When I returned home just before 7 a.m. I found my kids bustling around getting ready, doing chores and helping with the younger kids. They had gotten themselves going nicely and I was doubly happy that they were accustomed to doing morning chores. Not only that but that they could govern themselves enough to be helpful rising to the occasion of being down a parent. I also found my in-laws sitting in the kitchen! I had asked them if they wouldn’t mind driving Haley into school so she wouldn’t be late and I guess they got the time mixed up. Instead of arriving just in time to take Haley, Rick had crawled out of bed with a knock on the door a little after 6 a.m. to let them in the house thinking it was us needing to be let in at the door for some reason. After such a rough night he’d crawled back to bed to sleep it off and my in-laws made their way out of the increasingly populated kitchen so they could wait in the living room. Breakfast was served from Panera, courtesy of my in-laws, which I enjoyed a full day later as I leisurely read at 5:50 a.m. at the church during seminary. The Panera got my most resistant child out of bed that morning when another child promised that Grandma and Grandpa had brought doughnuts but it ended badly with one very disturbed child when she found out it was muffins, etc. but no doughnuts as promised. I put in a call to Rick's Dr.’s office being put on hold for forever as I went about tasks of diaper changing, dressing, laundry, packing lunches and I don’t know what all. But we made it through the morning… somehow. After dropping the cat off to the Dr. who was scheduled to have two teeth extracted, and then making my way back down town I dropped off two kids at two schools and felt conflicted as to whether I should go home to check on Rick or keep it quiet so he could sleep. I decided to let him sleep and I took Kaitlyn and Nathan to McDonalds for pancakes and some playtime. I usually get a small drink for myself but this time ordered a medium diet coke. Five diet cokes later I knew I’d be up for the day and was starting to mildly doubt if I’d be able to sleep Tuesday night. I’m normally pretty sensitive to any caffeine in my system.
In the afternoon before heading back to pick up kids from school I got the call that the cat was ready to be picked up. I put the kids into the car, both of whom passed out cold immediately on the car ride and drove to pick our kitty up. This wasn’t a problem until I’d strapped the cat carrier into the car with a seatbelt and went to pull out of the lot. We were in a construction area and I immediately felt something nudge the back end of the car, heard a loud hissing noise and knew what had happened. I drove around the corner off the busy road and my heart sank. I saw what I was expecting; one very flat-as-a-pancake tire. Two sleeping kids in the car along with a cat, a flat tire, two schools expecting me to pick up my three kids with already barely enough time to make it. What to do? I was a pro at changing tires back when I was single and I drove my little white car but I wasn’t sure about this. A van? I managed to locate the tools and the jack. I managed to use the tools to lower the tire from under the body of the van so it was laying on the ground but I could not detach that darn doughnut and extract it from the string it hangs on. I got out the instruction manual and called Rick. He’d never changed the tire on this car but tried to describe how take the tire off. Problem was, I couldn’t even pull the tire out from under the car and there wasn’t enough space under the car to lift it, shift things and get it off. The doughnut felt very heavy but more importantly it wouldn’t even fit out from under. I sat there in the side doorway of the van trying to comprehend the owners manual, cursing the fact that I was no longer up on such essentials like changing tires and oil and such things when the Roofers from Bone Dry Roofing started returning one by one from their daily work. I happened to be sitting in front of their office. Three of them came out after several minutes and asked if I needed any help. I explained that I wasn’t having much luck but I had the spare lowered and all of the tools. The three of them took over and had it changed in 10 minutes and watching them work I’m not sure if I would have succeeded in getting the lug nuts off that tire. These were strong roofing guys; men who do hard physical labor every single day and they struggled with that tire to some degree. I was so grateful to these guys for rescuing me from my miserable situation and thanking them I promised to keep them in mind the next time I need a new roof. Rick was feeling well enough that he had called the schools, gotten dressed and gone to pick up the other kids. I made my way home with enough time to throw dinner on the table and get all the kids out the door to their church activities. I fell into bed after my 18 hour day with the promise to myself that tomorrow I’d make sure the two littlest kids had a bath.
Nature has a way of ensuring things like that.
Wednesday morning, after starting the day enjoying the most beautiful western moonset at 5:30 a.m. I’d returned home, gotten lunches together, homework checked and signed and all the kids piled into the car. I’d changed Nathan but let him keep cozy in his PJ’s for the ride. I was just approaching Fairview to drop off Tristan for Orchestra at 8 a.m. when Nathan started coughing. He’d had a little cold that I’d shared with him over the weekend but I called back and asked if he was OK. Just as we pulled up to the side of the school he started vomiting, projectile covering himself, the seat across the isle from him and anything else in the path which unfortunately affected a backpack. Oooooo! Think fast. I climbed out and opened the trunk, still full of flat tire and tools and found a canvas bag I keep there for grocery shopping. I told one of my girls to find me a plastic bag in the car and another of my girls to find me some hand sanitizer from somebody’s lunch bag. I pulled the somehow unaffected cello from the car and dumped the backpack out on the sidewalk, extracting only the necessary requirements from it. Everything else wrapped in plastic I tossed back into the car, rolled the windows down and drove to the next drop off. At this point the High School had already begun and I wrote a late excuse for Haley. Handing it to her I said “I don’t make this stuff up”. She smiled and I promised to see them at the end of their day. Arriving home a half hour later at about 9 a.m. I extracted car mats and the plastic wrapped book bag out of the car flinging them over the fence adding to my now growing collection of disgusting things to clean in the back yard. The hose would have to be retrieved from its winter reprieve a little bit early this year. I then extracted a boy from his buckle carrying him straight out in front of me and deposited him fully clothed into the bathtub, peeling off layers and tossing them into more garbage bags to take to my growing pile of laundry and hospital bag of winter coat to Dry-Clean. Having soaked and scrubbed the boy and redressed him I found that he did actually have a fever as did his sister, though I was fairly certain that this event was just due to the fact that he ate right before driving. He gets motion sickness if he eats breakfast before the early morning drop off and I have dealt with this to some degree with him on several occasions. His sister, complaining, also was found to have a fever and so I left them huddled under blankets, medicated, and watching a movie. I then went out to deal with the car seat; my final addition to the backyard pile of vomit. I decided I’d better deal with this before the neighbors came home from work and before I could lose my nerve. This pile could NOT be ignored as I filled more garbage bags with car seat padding. I could hardly wait to find out what would happen next. My luck had been unbelievable so far.
I found out just what “next” would bring when I went to use the hose; nozzle left on from previous summer. The thing was broken, beyond repair and I could not get any water out of it at all. I turned the water source off but couldn’t release any pressure without loosening the nozzle itself; dropping the nozzle still attached and running but not before I could get away from the spray soaking my pants, arms and face. I then finished taking off the nozzle, turned the water on using my finger to create water force to clean my disgusting pile and scrub out my car seat. Hanging my floor mats up on the railing and putting the car seat on the deck to face the sun and wind I sprayed everything down with Febreeze for pet odors. It was all I had but I figured it would work. I went in to tackle Mt. Laundry.
I posted a Face Book status then; something to the effect that I thought I needed some chocolate. A little while later I found my way into a bag of chocolate chips and had a few. Chocolate chips and a diet coke… the unleaded type this time. Sigh… Breathe… Then the afternoon and evening frenzy.
I put my kids to bed after giving them a nice warm bath and some ibuprofin for their fevers one last time. Another child was performing in her concert, others at home were catching up on homework and lost sleep and I was catching up on laundry, hoping to get a shower and get to bed after a 17 hour day by 10 p.m. As I often do, I decided to check my FB along with my laundry one last time for the day and found a message left 10 minutes prior to check my front porch. Intrigue… and I ran up the stairs and threw open the door. There, right next to my door, was a pretty blue basket with a blue ribbon handle filled with Dove chocolates of the milk chocolate AND dark variety (my favorites and the darker the better) along with a thoughtful card, sweetly written which just happened to illustrate my very most favorite flower in the whole wide world in my very most favorite two colors which must go together in the whole wide world, which only my Mom and maybe one of my sisters pay any attention to and I'm sure my friend didn't even realize. A huge smile spread on my face and I laughed… but this time it wasn’t the “crazy” laugh that I giggle when it becomes a choice between laughing or crying. Had my luck turned? It didn’t matter. Life wasn’t all bad and I went inside to savor the smooth chocolaty candies and try to express thanks. What friends I have! I owe thanks to so many this week.
The Dove candies have little messages inside each wrapper. The first one read “Be good to yourself today”… food for thought since I’d barely had a moment in days and I wondered if I could be OK with telling myself I’d done the best I could. I didn’t think I need to work on being “spontaneous”… most of my days had been that. “Take a moment for yourself”… yeah; a hot shower and bed was sounding good, forget my favorite TV show with the laundry, and I was almost there unless something else happened. Finally I unwrapped one that said “chocolate is a gift of love” and I smiled. I LOVE always knowing that I have such sweet friends I can count on. Thank you! And today is a better day.
… and Valentines created for my sweetheart were enjoyed with milk and conversation hours after kids were in bed and MY homework of checking assignments, proofreading research papers and folding laundry was finished. Valentine’s Day was enjoyed by all!
