A Week of All Weeks!!

 The evening of Tuesday, March 11 was a typical Taco Tuesday with Julie and I. All that day I had felt kind of funny, but I shrugged it off to fatigue. But when I got home and saw that I had spiked a fever,  I knew that I was in for a rough ride. The throwing up was the worst part (sorry for the TMI). Usually that part is a one-and-done, but it went on most of the night and into the next day every few hours. I was miserable. By Thursday, I manned up and took myself to Same Day Care. After a few nose swabs, they diagnosed me with Influenza A, the popular strain these days. After some Tamiflu and other anti-nausea medicine, I was in no better shape on Friday. In fact, I was much worse. I called Julie and told her that I was going to drive myself to the ER. She came and got me, and we headed for hospital. Once back in a bay, they realized that this had turned into a much more serious issue. They hooked me up to IV's and told me that this was DKA, or diabetic ketoacidosis. My influenza had sent my diabetes into a tailspin, and my glucose numbers were off the scale. It was clear that I was far from stable, and that I would not be going home anytime soon. 

I was admitted to a room on the 3rd floor where a team of nurses and medical staff were monitoring me around the clock. They noticed an abnormality in my esophagus, because I could not swallow anything solid. Only puddings and smooth food items. They ordered on upper endoscopy to determine what in the world was going on down in my throat. They found irritation in my esophagus. Esophogitis. (Sp?) The early indications that the techs were giving me was that it was cancer. Cancer of the esophagus. My family has dealt with cancer in the past, and the thought that I might have it was scary. However, I had to remind myself that God is still on the throne, and that we will take whatever comes our way, one step at a time. Over time, the cancer prognosis was downplayed to a slight possibility. A future appointment will either confirm or eliminate that possibility.  

I was in the hospital for 4 days, receiving the best of care from some of the most wonderful nurses and staff. When I found out I was going to be released on Tuesday with a whole long laundry list of meds, I realized, as did others, I was still going to need help. I'm not good with keeping track of all of these things, and Julie and my family were nervous at the prospect of me going back to my apartment by myself. I have to admit I was nervous at the prospect as well. I'm not a young man anymore. What was I to do? I could not go to stay at Julie's. According to our Christian beliefs, we do not believe it is appropriate to co-habit outside the bounds of holy matrimony. Our wedding wasn't until May. What to do.........

Tuesday, March 18: (Cue Mission:Impossible music) Julie and a team make a mad dash to McPherson to buy a wedding dress, groom's clothes, and wedding bands. Rob is still in the hospital, waiting for discharge info, and reeling from this crazy decision we've come to: We're getting married: Tonight! Rob will be a married man....tonight! He's going to be living with Julie....tonight! 

We had a small ceremony at our church with the blessing of our Pastors and the small group that attended. It was pretty surreal. We exchanged vows and rings and committed to honor God in our married life. For those of you who are reeling from this change of events, imagine how we felt, lol. We are still planning on a formal ceremony and reception in May. That will not change. The only change we made was to honor God in our choices. 

Since the start, Julie has been my rock. I am severely weak, and she has run errands for me, gotten my meds, and then helped me figure out when to give them to me. She has let me rest, which is what my body needs most. Now comes the really tough part. I need to get my stuff from my apartment and get it to Julie's. We cannot do this ourselves. We have done a bit, but we are needing a small army of people that would be willing to come be arms, backs, whatever...and get my apartment vacated in short order. We will probably need a couple of trucks. I'm hoping that we can knock all or most of this out on Saturday. We plan to start at noon and see how much we can get done in a few hours. If you would be willing and able to donate a few hours on Saturday in exchange for pizza and Heavenly rewards, let me know, so that we can get you the 411 on all of the details. 

OK, deep breath....how's that for a whole world turning on a dime? And who ever thought that Rob would finally be married! God has been so good to me this last week in terms of getting back on my feet and well again. I still have a long was to go, but that's better than the alternative, right? If you made it this far, I thank you for staying with me this long. Thanks for taking the time out of your day to read my post, and God bless you!!