Monday, July 1, 2013

One crazy week

Oh lordy, i'm almost 40.  Okay, so 35 but still I feel old.  This week has been absolutely insane.  I know I don't usually write a weekly wrap up, but this one is definitely wrap up worthy.

It all started on Thursday with Peanut. We're going through some worrisome stuff with him that I haven't been posting about because I don't like to get all personal when it comes to the kids. I had to take him to the doctor and then over to the lab to get blood drawn.  I hate it when the kids have to get poked with needles. It's seriously heartbreaking, but Peanut did amazing and didn't shed a tear.  I was impressed, as was the lab tech.

I made it home from a long, out of town doctor's appointment with Peanut, quickly threw some dinner into the crock pot and sat down on the couch to clear my head and regroup.  I had a million things to get done before I headed out of town the following day for a Pee Book signing in Seattle, but sitting down and relaxing for a minute felt like Heaven.

Then my husband called. He was complaining of a migraine.  Both of us get migraines so I didn't think much of it.  Since it was late in the afternoon I told him he should just come home.  He had some really important stuff to get done at work, so he said he would run to the store next to his office, get some headache medicine and go back to work to finish up but that he would be home soon.  Not even 15 minutes after we hung up, he called me again which I found odd, but figured maybe he just forgot to tell me something.  However, as soon as he started talking, I could tell that something was immediately very wrong.  The first thing out of his mouth was, "I need help. My body is shutting down."  Say what?  I of course freaked out and started yelling into the phone, "What do you mean your body is shutting down?"  Inside my head I was thinking, "Can you PLEASE elaborate for me?"

He wasn't able to talk much but managed to squeak out that he was at a gas station near his work.  Then the phone went dead.  I freaked out.  I grabbed my purse and yelled at the teens to watch the younger kids and that I had to go.  The younger kids have this funky routine at the door where you have to give them a certain number of hugs and kisses (yes, we're all a little wacky in this house).  However, I didn't even say goodbye.  I grabbed my purse and ran.  I weaved in and out of traffic like Sandra Bullock from Speed.  Seriously, I don't even remember how I got to my husband, but I made it in record time.   By the time I got to him, he was slumped over the wheel and not making much sense.  I had to transfer him into my van (not an easy task when someone is close to death and weighs more than you) and then move his car so it didn't get towed.  I was driving around downtown Portland trying to find a spot to leave his car where A) It wouldn't get towed B)Wouldn't get stolen C)Wasn't too hard to parallel park as I suck at parking.

I found a place to park on a residential street and then ran back to my van.  By this point my husband was totally delirious.  He was saying he couldn't feel anything and was kind of flopping around like a fish out of water.  It was scary. Of course we hit like every single red light on the way to the hospital so i'm yelling at cars and pedestrians to get the hell out of my way.  I pulled up to the ER and jumped out of the van.  By this point my legs felt like rubber bands.  I yelled out at the vallet parking guys, "I need help".  Before I knew it an entire crew of medical people were pulling my husband out of my van and transferring him into a wheelchair.  Then he was gone.  The vallet parking guy was asking me my name so he could write it on my ticket stub thingy and my mind went blank.  I managed to remember my name after stammering for a minute and then he said, "Ma'am, I need your keys so I can move your car".  I didn't even realize it, but I had such a tight death grip on my keys that my hand was white.   I handed him the keys and a nurse took me by the arm and lead me into a back entrance.

My husband was already back in a room.  By the time I walked in, I gasped.  There were so many people in the room that I could barely move.  I was sandwiched into a tiny corner by a sink.   They were ripping off his clothes, as his pants and shoes were tossed into the air.  It was one of the worst moments of my entire life. It was something straight out of a movie or ER episode, but minus the actors and bright camera lights.  This was real life and there was nothing theatrical about it.  They hooked him up to every kind of monitor you could imagine.  Things were beeping, people were yelling, and I watched helplessly as my best friend was basically being worked on by about 20 different doctors and nurses.

His stats were stable but he still wasn't responsive.  His eyes were open and staring straight up towards the ceiling.  I feebly attempted to answer questions over the roar of emergency staff.  It was not easy, but I held myself together.  I had no choice. I was their only source of information as to who they were working on, as my husband couldn't speak at all.

He was taken back to CT for a head scan.  He had an EKG and chest x-rays.  The doc mentioned she was concerned of bleeding in his brain.  Sweet Jesus, I felt my knees buckle again.  As quickly as all of the commotion started, it became completely, eerily silent.  The room had cleared out, except for his nurse.  All I could hear was the beeping of the machines.  I broke down.  I began to cry and shake.  I felt like I was going to vomit or pass out.  I actually had a pounding headache myself, but didn't have a chance to take any pills before I ran out of my house. The nurse (who was very awesome by the way) came over and held onto my arm and said, "Come on hun. Let's go for a walk".   She took me around the floor and over to the water station where she poured me a cup of ice water.  "You were amazing in there" she said.  She went on to say how helpful I was and that they were impressed by how calm I remained and that I was able to stay focused and answer their questions.  I didn't really know how to respond, except to say "Thanks, I was just trying to get him here as quickly as I could".  I certainly didn't feel very amazing. I felt guilty for staying so calm during such an emergency.  I felt numb.  I can't explain it, but it's almost as if I was preparing myself for a bad outcome. The doctor advised me to call his family members and advise them of his condition.   I pulled out my phone and saw that I had 8 percent power and no charger. Perfect.  I still had to call the kids at home so I knew what I had to do.  I Facebooked it. I'm not proud of it, but that's the only way I knew how to update family without having to individually call or text them.  I then called the kids and gave them instructions on how to turn off the crock pot and fix dinner.  Thank goodness for the stinking crock pot or who knows what my darling children would've consumed for dinner.

I sat perfectly still in a chair while he slept. At least I think he was sleeping. I'm not really sure where he was to be honest.  It was like he had crossed over into some kind of special place, and I wasn't included. I cried a little, but mostly just sat in my chair.  I had so many thoughts racing through my mind.  I thought about my kids at home.  I thought about my husband.  I thought about Peanut's test results.  I thought of things I never thought i'd have to think of.  A few hours after his CT scan, my husband turned his head towards me and asked, "How did I get here?" Hearing him ask me a question was the best feeling ever.  A wave of relief washed over me, but i'll admit, I was still scared shitless.  I started telling him the sequence of events, and of course he didn't remember any of it.  It took him a little while, but the more we talked, the more he started to make sense.  My husband was coming back to me, little by little.

After several bags of IV fluid, some heavy duty pain meds in his IV and some anti-nausea medicine, he was looking more like his old self.   His doctor came in and said that his potassium levels were really low so she's assuming this was a bad mixture of dehydration, low potassium levels and a killer migraine.

After what felt like an eternity they unhooked him from the monitors and let him walk around.  He was able to go to the bathroom, so they agreed he could go home that night, provided he follow up with his doc first thing next week.  This was music to my ears because when we first arrived, I was told he would most likely be transferred upstairs and would remain there for several days.

By the time we got home it was almost morning.  I told my husband there was no way in hell I was leaving him to go to Seattle.  I mean what kind of wife leaves her husband who had just been in the hospital a few hours prior to drive three hours out of town?  This one right here.  He insisted that I go, and since he's a workaholic he was going to be heading back to work anyways so I went.

My trip to Seattle was fun! I was a free woman for 12 hours.  TWELVE HOURS!  I didn't even know what to do with myself!  I was able to pee alone multiple times and the radio station was all mine.  I cranked up the tunes and fought Friday afternoon Tacoma traffic. Holy poop, I don't even know how people can live there and deal with the traffic.  It's insane.

I got to hang out with fellow Pee Book author, Rebecca from the Frugalista Blog.  It was tons of fun to chat with a fellow blogger about bloggy related stuff.

Here we are dressed in black.  
We didn't plan to match.  Or did we? I'll never tell......

I would like to point out that i'm actually wearing a dress.  I'm pretty sure the last time I wore a dress was my wedding day. Unless you count the hospital gowns that I gave birth in. Okay those definitely don't count.

Here I am signing a book.
I look so serious. I don't mess around when i'm trying to spell and write at the same time. 

I made it back to Portland around midnight.  The kids were in bed and I was attacked by my husband shortly after I walked in the door (damn dress).   I thought that things were getting back to normal but the following morning I was woken up by screams of terror coming from the family room.  I heard something about "Flounder Junior is dead".  Flounder Junior is (was) Bo's fish that she won at her school carnival back in May.

You may have seen his mug on my Facebook page. 
Upon arriving at the crime scene, I saw Flounder Junior lying lifeless on the hard wood floor, along with a toddler standing suspiciously close to his bowl.  We still don't know if he plunged to his death, or if Peanut had something to do with it, but he was our only witness and he wasn't saying much.

Poor Bo's was super upset as this was our first family pet and his death was pretty traumatic for all of us.  When she realized that dead fish typically get flushed down the toilet, she became absolutely hysterical, so we decided to have a funeral for Flounder instead.

Yes, while you were probably out doing normal Saturday night stuff like strolling the aisles of Target or going out to dinner or a movie, we had a funeral....for a fish.

Flounder's casket

Saying our goodbyes to Flounder Junior 

The griever and the potentially guilty party

By the time Sunday rolled around I figured things had to calm down.  They just had too.  But it ended up being 97 degrees on Sunday.  We don't have air conditioning since it rarely ever gets that hot in Portland.  I made the mistake of trying to cook dinner on the stove (chili of all things because nothing goes better with 97 degree heat than a steaming bowl of hot ass chili, right?) and I cooked corn bread in the oven at nearly 400 degrees because i'm smart.

I was so hot that I was literally dripping sweat.  I started chopping onions and slipped and almost took off part of my thumb.  Blood was squirting out all over the counter as i'm screaming for help.  I could've just ordered a pizza, but that would've been way too easy. Nope, rather we had steaming hot chili with bloody onions (literally).

Today is my 35th birthday and it's Monday.  Yay.  Nothing says "Happy Birthday you old bitch" like a Monday morning.  I don't think I slept more than an hour last night.   This morning I was woken up by my five year old son turning on the stand up fan full blast about two inches from my face.  I mean who really needs a nose and eyelashes, right?  My kids want me to take them to OMSI and buy them stuff today cause apparently once you have kids your birthday is supposed to be a special day for them.  How silly of me.  So, as soon as I post this i'm off to the kitchen to cook blueberry muffins.  Hopefully i'll actually get to eat one before they are gone.  Then i'm spending the rest of the day curled up in the freezer.  It's supposed to be another scorcher.  Or maybe it's just the hot flashes kicking in.










4 comments:

  1. Oh man! Saw it all go down on facebook, so glad he'sok! You had a super crazy week. Happy Birthday :)

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  2. Ohhhhh myyyyy Lorrd.
    First of all, I was in tears reading about your hubs ordeal.
    I am so glad it wasn't something more serious and that he is ok but I would have felt exactly the same way.
    My hubs is my WORLD.
    Such a big week in your world!
    And so proud of your book signing!
    Annnnd you looked GORGEOUS!

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  3. I read your blog all the time, but have never commented before.

    That must have been scary as hell and I'm glad the outcome wasn't serious.

    And, just to show you that you aren't the only "crazy person": one time I made a roast in similar weather with no AC and thought I was going to die of heatstroke! ;)

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  4. So your birthday might have been a bit more eventful than mine. ;)

    ReplyDelete

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