On the Road to Recovery

After many, many months of recurring flu-like symptoms hitting from out of the blue, I've finally learned that I have kidney stones and a bacterial infection (E. coli, of all things) in my blood as a result. Recently, after the attacks were coming more frequently than every other month, we charted the doctor visits and pushed for some detailed research. I had tests run for West Nile Virus, Mono, Lupus and even cancer and thankfully I've learned that I've been getting sick due to bad blood and problematic kidneys. I spent the last weekend in the local hospital sobbing like crazy from missing DH and Pumpkin and worrying (a) about what was wrong with me and (b) how I was going to take care of my family and home while away. If there was any humor to the event is was this: I've only been hospitalized twice; once for oral surgery and this incident. The first hospitalization I was treated by Dr. Pepper and this time my physician was Mohamad Ali!!!



Happily, I'm home now and on the mend with a lovely pic-line in my arm and intravenous anti-biotics twice a day for ten days, administered by my very own Dr. Feelgood and Nurse Goodbody (DH and my MIL). (I don't have the stomach to look at the contraption, let alone inject myself.) It's not the most pleasant feeling when the saline runs through my vein or having to operate with basically one arm and not being able to lift anything over 5 pounds (Pumpkin is definitely out). And, the hospital stay wasn't much fun having gone through one CAT scan that required two bottles of barium beforehand and an IVP that required another 10 ounces of liquid "flusher" that wasn't the easiest drink on my palate. With luck, I'll have no more gastric cleansers to injest or blood to draw for a long, long time.



I'm learning to adjust also to having others help me which is very hard due to years of single life and an in bread need for independence and self-sufficiency. But, the greatest lesson I'm learning is that faith prevails and love is the greatest gift of all. Faith was taught to me again from DH who, throughout my recent weeks of fear and anxiety of what would be wrong with me and possibly having an illness that would end my life prematurely, told me I would be fine. Love in the exemplary example of a man that my DH is. I will not provide too many details specific to medical care he's provided for me, but let's just say no task was beneath him. He's gone to every doctor appointment with me, fed me, run to the store for food and even brings me frozen Coke's because he knows they bring me joy. He bathes me, takes care of our daughter and helps to keep the house in order. Helping him is his Mom who has taken up temporary residence with us to tend to Pumpkin. And, I cannot forget my family and DH's family who have prayed for me, called and visited me in the hospital so I had company.



In times of fear and worry, to know you have people around you whose only desire is for you to be better and know that you're loved is something new for me. I am so very blessed to have married into a family so willing to easily love and care for me.



I have loved my husband for years, long before we reunited and married, because of the man I knew he was. When I thought I couldn't love and respect him more, he's shown a side of himself that so raises the bar that I cannot fathom what lucky twist of fate brought him to me. He is my greatest friend and partner and I couldn't have made it through this without his support.



I am on my way back, one day at a time, one bottle of antibiotics at a time, thankfully with my loving family right behind me.