IN A BLINK YOUR LIFE CAN CHANGE...Pt. 1

Hey! I am so loving being back and blogging. I appreciate all the love and taking a minute out to say "Thank you!"

So for all that follow, there was a period of time where I was completely M.I.A and for good reason. Life filled my plate with every and anything possible, it all was just way too much. I am usually one to breathe a positive spin on all life has to offer, but let me say this as honestly as I can. Life, whether you are a parent or not can throw some situations at you that make it impossible to laugh, find the joy or be positive in the moment, and it is O.K to cry, to scream, to wonder why.  It is O.K to feel that moment.

NO ORDINARY NIGHT

That Friday afternoon was like any other. I spent the day in the park with my daughter and we had a blast, as usually. The evening, I made dinner, did bedtime and began writing. All my normal. I went to bed at 2 a.m and fell right to sleep. Then around 3 a.m I jumped out of my sleep and right off the bed, soaked in sweat, heart racing, completely blind and to top it all off, the space around me was turning upside down, swinging back a forth, I literally could not grab my footing. To say I was scared would be an understatement. I was in full panic mode and gagging like nobody's business.

Finally, I got my son's attention and he called the ambulance and my neighbor. I remember them coming and examining me and then my neighbor offering to watch my kids, as the EMS put me in an ambulance. It's funny in that moment I tried so hard to believe beyond a shadow of a doubt, all that I told my kids, "I will be O.K I will be fine..." . But no matter how hard I tried to find that positivity and connect with the words that spewed from my lips, that 'knowing' just was not there. I WAS SCARED.

I got to the hospital and the doctors came back with a diagnosis of vertigo. They draped me in yellow (apparently it is to make clear that I was a fall risk), then they gave me pills for the nausea, hooked up some IVs and gave me some time to rest. I started feeling a little better until....I started feeling dizzy again. Laying in bed and feeling like the room is flipping upside down was terrifying. The nurse came in and do you know that she adjusted my bed head to fall backward below my body level. Yes she hung me upside down basically. I was so confused until she explained, it was a technique aimed at trying to bring balance back to the inner ear. Just in case the cause of my vertigo was related to inner ear issues. Needless to say, it didn't work. The doctor came back in and checked on my and that's when it got real. Her face screamed that something was off. My face had drooped on the right side and the doctor uttered the term Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA)😕.  The doctor explained in layman's terms that it was basically a mini stroke caused by a temporary clot in the brain. At least that's what I remember.  My entire mental conversation was one of trying to rationalize, how I went from enjoying a day in the park to being on a hospital bed being sent for a battery of test.

TESTING

In came the nurses now prepping me for blood work, a CT Scan, a Chest X-ray and MRI. As they stood around my bed, I realized that my mom had arrived with my kids, but my littlest one was not allowed in the section of the hospital where I was. Finally I convinced them to let my kids in along with my mom, after all I was in a room on my own. My daughter (2 years old at the time) had this look on her face like trying to figure why mommy was laying there with all this stuff hanging from her. My son (14 at the time) just looked unsure. I remember just before they wheeled me away to get the scans done, my daughter lay on my chest and just didn't say a word, she just lay there. My mom said she didn't speak not one word until they returned later in the evening😢. 

On their return my results were back with each test performed coming back clear, except the MRI. That's when they admitted me and told me that a doctor will come and discuss the MRI results with me. Can I tell you, the only thing that kept those tears from flowing was my daughter, she was bawling, "Mommy come back don't leave" as they had to remove her from my bed in order to take me up to my room. As the doctor walked in he began by saying "Your results for the CT-Scan, Chest X-Ray and blood work are fine, but your MRI results are 'concerning'"....you know MRI results and concerning have no place co-existing in the same statement...just saying😔. From there the results were explained as several pockets of white cellular matter (note the lack of quotations as this may not have been verbatim). Then the term Auto Immune Disease was cited as a possibility, in hopes to help me understand exactly what he was saying, all the while I am just 😐 with my daughter laying in the bed with me, unable to grasp what is happening beyond mommy is talking to a doctor, my son listening with a blank expression while periodically looking at me and my mom just blinking in disbelief.

(Posting 06/24/2019.....PART TWO of IN A BLINK YOUR LIFE CAN CHANGE)