You know that scene in Money Pit where Tom Hanks is filling the bathtub and it falls through the floor and he stands there for a second and then starts laughing hysterically because he's had it? Well that was me, yesterday, on our way to the emergency room. Mark was a little freaked out and all I could do was laugh and look Heavenward and say to the Lord, "Really?"
Mark was up all night the night before coughing. I thought he had acid reflux, so I went out to sleep on the couch. Not even an hour later he was waking me up because he was shivering uncontrollably. He was freaking out that he was going to have a seizure. So we got in the bed and snuggled together until he warmed back up and the shivering stopped. He started snoring so I went back out to the couch. I think I was out there for two hours this time and here he came again. So we got back in the bed together and I was rubbing his neck and thinking, "He feels kind of hot." Well he WAS hot...102 degrees of hot. During his coughing fits he had said he was nauseaus and wanted a vomit bowl. He never thew up but was spitting out what he was coughing up. It was brown. I've never seen that before, my mom who worked in a doctors' office for more than 20 years had never seen that before. She said it didn't look like blood, but it definitely wasn't normal. So we dropped the girls off at church and headed to Instacare. We took a sample of the brown phlegm and when Mark showed it to them they said they couldn't take care of him and he needed to go to the hospital. So naturally, this made Mark a little nervous. I just started laughing. Not quite as hysterically as Tom Hanks, but laughing none the less. I'm sure Mark thought I was losing it. I probably was.
But this little trip to the hospital comes on the heels of a very sleep-deprived, stressful week. Remember back in October when we tried to go to the neighbors cabin and Mark had an anxiety attack and then couldn't control his muscle spasms for a few nights? That happened again this last week. Only it was worse. This time I videoed him laying in the bed and doing these full body twitches. I wanted to show the doctor exactly what we were dealing with. These twitches lasted three nights, the third night being the worst. We went to see the neurologist and all he could say was that it's because of the brain injury and it's induced by stress from his anxiety attacks. He gave us a prescription that should work to calm his body and brain down enough to be able to sleep. It worked. But we were hungover for a couple of days because we were trying to catch up on sleep. When these sorts of things happen and Mark has to spend a lot of time resting and sleeping, it does a number on his mental and emotional state. The feelings of worthlessness and depression set in.
So now you can understand why I was laughing. It's not funny at all. But at that time it seemed to be my only coping mechanism. The docs took a chest x-ray and drew blood to run tests. The x-ray didn't show anything, his white blood count was normal, but he did have some inflamation. So they loaded him up on Rocefin and saline and sent us home. They initially thought they were going to admit him, which REALLY frustrated me as I didn't want to spend another Christmas in the hospital, but after looking at all of the test results, they couldn't find a medical reason to keep him. They don't know if it's pneumonia or influenza. Most likely influenza because it just started the night before. So we're keeping a close eye on him and bathing in sanitizer.
If you haven't seen Money Pit, I highly recommend it. If for nothing more than that scene in the bathroom.
Blessing of the Week: sleep
Makes me think of a scientific fact I once read that proves that there are times we express the wrong emotion when we feel an opposite one and sometimes absolutely can't suppress it. You know like laughing in the middle of a performance or spiritual moment--or when you've had your wits end. Love ya Scarlet.xx
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