May 21, 2013

• emergency room and stuff

  I want to get this blogged before I forget it. . .

  I stayed up a little later than I had intended just because, and was in bed trying to go to sleep when Andy came home from work on Saturday night. He came to my door, paused, then went on upstairs a tiny bit later he came back down and came into my room and said he had a really bad headache. I prayed for him and he said he had never had a headache like this before. I asked him if he had taken anything and he said yes but the tylenol was not touching it. I told him to lay down on my bed and I went to get him a cold pack. As he lay there, he kept moaning and telling me he was scared, so I prayed more. 

  I got back into bed and just lay there shaking and fear was trying to envelope me, I was not about to give in to that! I asked him if he thought we should go to the emergency room he said I am not sure . . . I asked him again a few minutes later and he said, it's not going away I think we should. So I told him I would get dressed and we headed to Mercy Hospital.

  The whole thing was so unreal, driving at almost 1 am the route I take every day to work with Andy sitting next to me in such pain. I was thanking God for whatever He had for us when we would get to the hospital and for never forsaking us.

  When we got to the ER we had to wait for a bit for the receptionist to return to her desk, Andy just took a seat and I stood waiting. There was only one person there, other than the security person who told us where to go. It was really quiet which I was glad for. Soon the receptionist was back and we got him all check in. A nurse came and got all of his vitals and information as to what was going on and asked Andy if the light hurt his head and when he said yes, she said she would take us back to a dark room.

  It was so weird walking through the ER I was really thankful that it has changed a lot from the other times I had been there because it wasn't so bad being there. We got into the room and Andy got into a gown (yipee) and a nurse practitioner came in almost immediately which I was thankful for. She reminded me of Jennifer Aniston I thought how strange that she should remind me so much of her but thankful for the distraction as Andy was in so much pain. He had shared with me before we left home that he had looked on the internet about headaches like this and it could be a bacteria eating his brain - great, no wonder he was scared! Anyways Jennifer er I mean Mackenzie set to work checking him out. She told me everything was normal and they would start an IV drip and administer meds through that and he should be feeling better.

  She left and a little later the nurse came in to start the IV. Andy told her he didn't mind needles but he didn't like pain. When she started looking for a vein all I could think of was when Doug would have to have IV's and the trouble they ALWAYS had getting them started ugh! The first attempt failed but Andy didn't realize that so when she tried the second time he yelled OW and all I could think of was they needed Andy's "OW" for that ear plunger commercial (I can't think of what it's called). The nurse apologized and told him she should have warned him before the stick - uhhh ya think? Andy was really gracious and chatting with the nurse but in such obvious pain I felt so bad for him. He held onto my hand and kept checking to make sure I was still there. Funny how he seemed like such a little boy - when did he grow up?  insert huge sigh here.

  After all the meds were given she said she would check back in about 20 min to see if the meds were working. Andy seemed pretty good then all of a sudden another wave of pain hit and he was really moaning and asking where is she? why doesn't she come? where is she? Finally I called and after what seemed like a very long time Mackenzie came back and asked how he was doing. I told her not good and explained how the waves of pain were hitting and he would hold the left side of his face and moan really bad. She said she really didn't believe there was anything deeper going on since all of his vitals were good but let me go check on another medicine and with that she went out. Andy by this time had turned his head so the left side of his face was on the pillow, he had not been able to do that up till this point, and went to sleep. He slept for about ten minutes before she came back in and said, how is he, I told her sleeping she said, that's strange but convinced her it was a migraine and said she would check back in a few minutes.

  Andy slept for about 40 minutes Praise God! I knew once he slept he was going to be ok. When she came back and saw him still sleeping she asked if I was comfortable taking him home, yes, I told her so she told me what to watch for and bring him back if any of these things happened. She did not see any need for x rays or CT scan which I was really thankful for! A  bit later Andy woke up and said he had to go to the bathroom so the nurse came and got him unhooked from his IV so he could go and went to get his release papers. When he came back we got ready and came home.

  He was so hungry when he got home he grabbed two pieces of bread and ate them. Well, that started him to throw up! sheesh . . . finally when he got it all up I got him settled on the couch with a bucket and a warm blanket because he was freezing - prolly from the IV and told him to call me if he needed me. It was 4:35 when I got back to bed.

  Needless to say it was a long night, I didn't even try to get up for church this gal needed to sleep. I felt bad about missing but knew I just couldn't.

  Two things stick out in my mind about that night - 1 Andy's fingernails look just like Doug's & 2 I wonder how many times I have heard the sound of a blood pressure cuff 

   

  after all You are constant

  after all You are only good

  after all You are sovereign

  not for a moment will You forsake me!

  • 2:51 pm
  • 2 Comments