mr. invincible comes home

so today . . . rollie came home from the hospital. modern medicine strikes again, and he is on the mend.

this has been a strange experience for me. i am the one who has health issues and takes medicine--rollie is the one who exercises and takes vitamins. i am the one with a team of doctors who know me--rollie is the one who hasn't even met his current primary care physician. i am the one who knows where the kaiser hospitals and clinics and labs and urgent care centers are--rollie is the one who would have to use his gps to find them.

so when he ended up in the hospital, it was as though everything was turned upside down. suddenly he was the sickee, and i was the one standing helplessly by~

i actually felt pretty calm most of the time. i knew he was getting good care, and that God had a plan in all of it--and i was just kind of along for the ride. even as the drama unfolded, the calmness remained. we just let the doctors do their thing (which they did very well,) and then waited for him to recover enough to come home.

and today he came home. he is not yet back to 100%, but he is much better than he has been--in a long time, apparently. we know this because of his blood test results. and yet, i feel as though he is fragile. i don't want him to walk up and down the stairs. i don't want him to carry anything. i'm not really sure i want him to go to sleep unless i can watch him to be sure he is alright. i know this is not rational--he is much less likely to have a problem now than in the last month or so--and yet, that's how i feel.

i think of my husband as invincible and indestructible. he is strong and competent. he isn't afraid of anything. and so to suddenly be in a situation where he was so vulnerable has been strange. i'm not used to being the one sitting in the visitor's chair in a hospital room, worrying about what the test results will be and what the doctor will say. i felt so helpless, and yet i needed to be strong and calm. so i was. most of the time . . .

but i didn't like it. not one tiny little bit! i am looking forward to the day when life gets back to normal. and by normal, i mean when rollie is back to being the strong, healthy one. because i am definitely NOT up to the role of being mr. invincible . . .

the power of the internet

so today . . . we have good news! rollie's excellent doctors have found his problem and fixed it! he has to stay in the hospital a couple more days, but when they turn him lose, everything should be back to normal. actually, it should be better than normal, because he will have almost as much blood as a normal person and it shouldn't be leaking out anywhere!

through this experience, i have seen not only the power of prayer (thank you God for keeping him alive until he would finally go to the doctor!) but also, in a different way, the power of the internet.

on wednesday morning, while diandra was waiting alone in urgent care while rollie and i were seeing the doctor, she blogged about how prayer changes things. we had agreed not to call anyone until we had some news to share, so she was purposefully vague. but she was worried about her dad, and she wanted to share her experience, so she blogged. about an hour later, she said, "you need to call grammie. she read my blog, and she is worried that you or dad are sick." well, dad was sick, so i looked up the number and dialed . . .

last night when i got home, i was so tired. but i needed to blog. so much had happened and i was afraid i would forget how fortunate we had been. so although i didn't include a lot of the details of our day, i did want to document it. so i blogged. and then this morning i got a phone call from one of our friends from oregon who read the blog and was worried . . .

as i was talking to my friend from oregon, diandra was sitting in one of the chairs provided for visitors. they are not the most comfortable chairs, and so she tweeted, "hospital chairs=not comfy. at least my dad is awake :)" not long after that i got another phone call from another friend in oregon in response to her update. and so i explained the situation once again.

and then i got a text from my mom who had just answered a phone call from my aunt who was asking about rollie, because her daughter (my cousin) had read diandra's update on her facebook page . . .

this afternoon i had to plug in my phone, because the battery was totally dead! i don't think that has ever happened to me before . . . when i checked the messages later, there was a message from a friend of mine who is on vacation. so i called her. she is visiting someone who used to go to our church and still receives prayer requests by email. they were on their way home from an outing to a museum, when she decided to check her email on her phone. and she saw the news that rollie was in the hospital. so of course, my friend called to see how he was . . .

i guess if we want to get the word out about something, we just need to blog and tweet and post it on facebook, and pretty much everyone who matters to us will find out. good to know.

and as for rollie, we weren't trying to keep you all in the dark--we were just busy taking care of him.

and since every post is better with a photo (which i know i am terrible at doing . . . ) here's one of rollie getting ready to go to the hospital. does he look like he only has 6.4 liters of blood in his body?!?!?!

a day of thanksgiving

so today . . . i spent the day in health care facilities. rollie is not well.

he has been feeling dizzy off and on for a few days now, but like most men, kept saying, "if i don't feel any better tomorrow, i will call the doctor . . . " yeah, right.

rollie takes better care of himself than anyone else i know. he tries to eat right, and has the self-control to do it (unless the devil donuts fly into his mouth under their own power,) he exercises every day except sunday, he gets plenty of sleep, he takes his vitamins, and he is rarely sick. unlike me, his health care providers would not recognize him if they saw him at the mall.

and when he does get sick, he is an easy patient to take care of. he is not one of these whiny crybaby guys who need constant attention and sympathy. thank goodness, because i am not one of those wives who is good at that. when he is sick, i put him in bed with a glass of juice (to keep him hydrated,) the tv remote (for entertainment,) and his cell phone (so he can call me if he needs me,) and then i close the door. he sleeps, drinks his juice, watches tv, and calls me on his phone if he needs anything. it works for us.

but the problem this time is that he wasn't really sick--i mean, as it turns out, he was very, very sick--but he didn't really feel sick, except for the occasional dizziness. he even preached on sunday! so each day when i would ask how he was feeling, and he would say, "a little better, i think," i believed him. i still told him to call the doctor, but since he seemed to be improving, i didn't push it.

i should have. because this morning he fainted while he was in the shower. and then there was no further discussion--he got dressed and we headed to urgent care.

i am thankful for so many things that happened today--
--that we have excellent health care coverage through kaiser, so there were no worries about "what is this going to cost?" it is going to cost us $5--which i already paid.
--that i heard him yell for help, through two closed doors and the floor (he was upstairs and i was downstairs--asleep, btw.)
--that diandra was home (usually by 9:00 she would be at work) to call 911, and then convince them that we didn't really need them after all.
--that he didn't pass out again on the way to urgent care.
--that the health care providers immediately recognized the severity of his issues and acted accordingly.
--that when i was writing the music set last week, i mysteriously (?) ended up with two. so when i looked at the clock today and realized that i was supposed to be at rehearsal in an hour, i had a set all written and ready to go that i could hand over to the band, and i could stay at the hospital with rollie. (do you think maybe God knew this is where i would be today?!?)
--that he was in good enough shape that his body could continue to function in a state where the rest of us would not have survived.
--that even when his blood pressure was crashing and his pulse was racing and his body was trying to function with half it's blood supply, my husband could still smile and make jokes and thank the people around him repeatedly.

tonight he is in the hospital, under the watchful eye of his night nurse, sarah. he has needles in both of his arms. he is getting 4 units of blood, (which is only half of what he is lacking!) he has had bag after bag of saline. he hasn't eaten since our late lunch at rubio's yesterday. but his vital signs are better--blood pressure is up, pulse is down, volume of blood coursing through his veins is increasing with each bag they drip into him. and while he is tired and hungry, he is still smiling and making vampire jokes and thanking all the people who are helping him. repeatedly.

so today i am thankful for my husband, who is still alive and kicking, and for my daughter, who was there when i needed her, and for doctors who know their stuff. but most of all, i am thankful for a God who has a plan and works it all out and knows what He is doing. even when i don't . . .