What a wild ride

No, this wasn't the Wild Toad ride at Disney World, which I actually have fond memories or riding with my sister Lisa just a few years back, like 30 years back. No, this was a wild ride through the hospital system, as broken as it may be. Most of you know the story, but here is a summary for those of you that don't.

Friday 13th, should have known this was going to be a bad day. Marcy was having pain in her abdomen that had gotten severe enough that she wanted to go to the emergency. I know her well enough to know that if she WANTS to go to the emergency room, it freaking hurts. Got there around 9pm and she was finally diagnosed with a UT infection at 3:30am. Tried to sleep in a glorified folding chair, with little luck, as Marcy laid on a gurney, freezing her ass off because they didn't want to give her a blanket because she came in with a fever. Finally got home and in bed by 4am.

Saturday 14th, boys decided to get me up at 6am, seeing as how they got a good nights sleep. I figured I'd catch a nap later or get to bed early, so the 2 hours I had was all right. Marcy was sleeping, but up regularly with pain, they gave her no pain medicine at the hospital. Throughout the day, the pain persisted and was soon followed by vomiting and worse, but I'll leave that to your imagination because if I write it and Marcy sees it, she will hit me. (This is my cry for help, she beats me) Marcy decided that she had so much fun the night before, that she wanted to go back to the emergency room, so at 8:30pm, we packed up and headed off again. That night, they were even busier than the night before, so we spent some extra time in the waiting room, which is always a great way to spend a evening. Have I ever mentioned how great my small group from church is? When I was in Mexico a few years back, they came to my house and hung all of the drywall in my then unfinished basement. This night, a couple from that same group came down to the emergency room and spent their only night without their kids, with us, sitting and waiting. Sometimes people are put in your life and you don't know why. These people were put in our lives probably 6 years ago, maybe more since I'm so bad with dates and times, and we have been together ever since. I got to talk to my friend Chris, which took my mind off of the pain Marcy was in that I could do nothing to help. Mitzi talked with Marcy and helped keep her mind on other things. I'm not sure how long they were there, but I can tell you it meant the world to us. We finally got to go back and a nurse came in to put the IV back in. The guy talked to us, put in the IV and was just a pleasure to be around. Marcy told him that he did the best job of putting in the IV than anyone she had ever had. This was his response, "Thanks, that was my first time. They only call me when it's really busy, I'm normally in housekeeping." He said this with a straight face and I busted out laughing. I told him I thought he was going to say that he stayed in a Holiday Inn last night, which he instantly said he was going to use. Glad I could be of help. We made it to a room at 5:30am, which was a double room, but there wasn't anyone in the other bed. The whole time we were in the emergency room, I tried to again sleep in that chair with the 1/4 inch of padding, that didn't recline. That night I got exactly 0 hours of sleep. Luckily, I wasn't in pain, just pissed and uncomfortable. In all of this writing, please know that I know I was lucky to be in the situation I was in and not the situation Marcy was in, I just can't write about that pain or the feelings in her head. Nothing specifically got done for a day or so, they still thought it was the UTI. They did a CT scan, checked her appendix, ran lots of blood tests, but came back with nothing. They finally decided on Monday to do an ultrasound, which showed that she had a ruptured ovarian cyst. Seeing as how I don't have ovaries, I'm not up on how they work, completely. I mean, I took 6th grade health class where they showed us what they looked like, but beyond that, they are kind of like Bigfoot or the Lochness monster, you can tell me they are there all you want, but I can't see them and as long as they aren't causing me any trouble, I'd just assume not be bothered with them. The OBGYN that came in, told us that cysts in the ovaries are common, just not the rupturing, that's a bonus. The women I work with agreed, so I guess the guy knew what he was talking about. The treatment seemed to be, well, nothing. There appears to be nothing they can do but give you pain medicine and try to make you comfortable. Now Marcy is a small person, so what happened next was weired. They had an IV hooked to her the whole time, she was dehydrated when she came in, but she began to swell due to the amount of fluid they were putting in and that her body was not able to process. When she started to swell, she mentioned it to the Dr., but he didn't seem to care and kept the fluids going in, on top of the fluids she was now able to drink. She went from Saturday night until Tuesday afternoon with nothing but ice chips and the IV, no food or even water to drink. The swelling continued and she complained to the Dr. again, who slowed them down, but wouldn't remove the IV. Just to wrap this part up, she started to look pregnant with the amount of fluid that was in her, and it was causing her great discomfort because it was pushing on her stomach, lungs and bladder. We got to come home on Thursday the 19th and Marcy was in a great deal of pain, and still is. The bloating has gone down and the pain has lessened, but it is still there and it's horrible to see someone you love in pain, that probably could have been avoided, and there is nothing you can do. She is recovering, but has lost faith in a lot of the medical profession due to the fact that she has seen several Dr.'s since then and none were able to offer help or insight into why this happened and how she could speed the recovery. I'm just glad she is on the road to recovery, I really want my wife back and the boys want their mom back the way she was.

We had so many people step up and help us through this time. When you have kids and something like this happens, it's difficult to keep up with everything that needs to be done, but with the help of family and friends, all seems to be nearing normal. There are the people who prayed for us and emailed, called or texted us daily. That was a nice diversion when all we could do was sit in the hospital room and watch daytime TV. Numerous people helped by watching the boys so I could be at the hospital with Marcy. Michelle watched the boys on numerous occasions and spent a ton of time at the hospital keeping us company. Our nieces drove up from Mt. Pleasant and kept the boys from Monday thru Friday which was a HUGE relief. The boys loved having them and they took really good care of them. For that, we will be forever grateful. For all of those that stopped in to say hi, thank you! To our small group that have all visited, cooked and prayed for us, I can't thank you enough. This group has become family and I wish I was as good as a family member to them as they have been to me. To all of our friends,there are too many to name individually, THANK YOU! and we love you! (damn allergies)