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I truly thought my husband would die when I left my last journal and my sister said he would. Your prayers mean the world to me and I held on to them fiercely regardless of how it went. But low and behold my husband took an amazing turn that was nothing short of a miracle. He is so much better, but I don't know what the consequences of this week will be. marytygh parks comment to my last journal is frightening and my heart goes out to her. I have been too tired and busy with my husband since leaving the message Sunday night that I just couldn't write before this. It has been very eventful in the hospital to the point of calling 3 code Grey on him, and drugging him with Haldol without us knowing.
Because I am so “wordy” once I get started, and I want so desperately to be understood, I'd like to tell the whole story even if it takes me several days. Thursday we went camping at the beach above Santa Barbara, with our daughter and her husband. My husband wasn't keen to go especially in a car and tent, but since our daughter has stage 4 cancer and was in town from Arizona for her Oncologist visit (a better report), we wanted to spend time with her.
They stayed the entire 5 days but my husband and I left after 2 nights. He and I were sleeping in a small tent on an air mattress, and it seems that he just isn't as gung-ho about camping as we were in the past, being used to having a van to sleep in, especially needing to use his c-pap at night using an aging specialty battery. Also, a particular hassle was we had to unload the entire tent the second night, except for the air mattress, and carry them with the air mattress inside, back to the car to blow up the slowly leaking said mattress using the car's cigarette lighter to power the pump. This tent is too small to get the air mattress in the door after it has been blown up.
Can you just see us moving the entire “pitched” tent with the air mattress inside? For me, it's almost a point of pride that we are game enough at 83 and 77 to even be doing this. Home movies would have been a good idea. For my husband, he's bordering on just being over the whole camping thing although we have absolutely loved it for so many years. It was a terrible disappointment to both of us that we had to give up camping in the mountains because of him now needing oxygen when in altitudes above three or four thousand feet. He did not sleep well, and felt somewhat cold at night, especially the first night which was damper than the second. Probably this didn't have anything to do with him getting sick since the weather was very warm and beautiful, but it may not have helped.
We had a very nice time with our daughter and husband, and spent Friday having lunch and walking around a darling old original “Stagecoach Stop” tavern and stores. We left the area early Saturday afternoon. Helping me take down the tent and pack the car did tire him out more than expected. We drove around Santa Barbara, stopping at the Visitor's Center, then went out for dinner on the way home. I unloaded the car except for 2 small ice chests, small enough to fit on the floor behind the front seats. Those were all he carried in but he felt exhausted, even though I had done the driving home. The house was hot being closed up in the 100 degree heat but a couple of hours later he was shivering in the air conditioning. Even though I turned the air off, the shivering got worse and worse.
He has been playing with his new oxygen saturation meter, since he needs oxygen when up in the mountains. The doctor tells him not to use any oxygen down at sea level or he will damage his lungs, but because of his shortness of breath due to COPD/emphysema he often feels like he needs it. The meter happens to have a pulse rating on it too, which reads 70 steadily because of his pace maker. It read 41; after a couple of minutes it read 123. We decided to go to the ER, and things went downhill from there. I just couldn't live without the Lord, and I wouldn't want to live if I didn't “have” Him.
To be continued.....
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