when april ends...

Every year when April ends, I breathe a sigh of relief.  It's not because I hate April or joyously anticipate May.  It's because making it through April signifies the hope of another healthy year.

Here's my journey of health (or the lack thereof)...

PART 1

I was never sick as a child.  I mean never.  I never had an ear infection, major cold/flu/stomach virus etc.  In high school, I tore my ACL and had to have knee surgery and got bronchitis a few times, both as a result of soccer...but was never really sick.

I went off to college and the same remained true.  While everyone else was getting flu shots and taking vitamins like crazy so they didn't get sick, I was unaffected...atleast for the first two years.

Then, spring of my junior year hit.  I had been married about 5 months when I came down with what we thought was just a bad case of the flu.  After all, I was substitute teaching and doing my classroom observations so I was exposed to germs all day long.  I just couldn't seem to kick it so I went to the doctor.  Of course, he said it was just the flu so I went on with my regular life even though I felt terrible.  A few weeks into this flu, I started coughing up blood.  I don't know about you, but coughing up blood in my mind indicated TB or some other terrible lung disease so I went straight to the doctor.  He said the flu had settled in my lungs and now was bronchitis...put me on some antibiotics and I should be fine...EXCEPT I wasn't.  I continued to cough up blood but now it was also excruciatingly painful.  I had trouble breathing and would become short of breath walking from the living room to the bathroom.  So, I went back.  "Pneumonia" he said and gave me a thick shot in the cheek and some more antibiotics.  He said I should be back to normal in a week...but I was no where near "fine."  So, he started having me come every other day.  The "Pneumonia" was getting inexplicably worse...the pain was getting inexplicably worse...I was short of breath just standing...my legs would swell for no apparent reason...my heart would race (110+bpm) when I was sitting on the couch.  After about 2 weeks of this, he admitted me to the hospital for IV antibiotics to treat my "pneumonia".

I checked in and they immediately put me in an isolation room...they couldn't be certain what I had and there was another A&M student that had been admitted recently with a rare, antibiotic resistant strand of pneumonia.  On the first night there, they sent in a repiratory therapist to give me a breathing treatment and some percussive therapy to break up the congestion.  When she awoke me and I opened my eyes, I thought I was dreaming because I recognized her immediately.

We weren't long lost friends or best friends or anything like that.  I had met her a year earlier when I was working in the local christian bookstore.  She came in about 7 months pregnant looking for some Bible study material.  We struck up a conversation.  It turned out that her husband had left her when she became pregnant.  He didn't want kids.  They had made a "deal" when they were married that they wouldn't have children.  He had demanded that she either have an abortion or he would leave her.  She would not abort...so she lost him.  She didn't have any family living and so was all alone in this journey of loss and abandonment and single parenting and new life.  I took my lunch break so we could go talk and pray and even cry.  I gave her my phone number and we spoke and saw eachother several times over the next few months...then, I didn't hear from her.  I tried to call but there was no answer and then the line was disconnected.  I assumed she had moved.  BUT there she was!  She wasn't supposed to work that night but was covering someone else's shift.  She cried when I said her name, both of us in complete disbelief.  We caught up, she gave me the "treatment", we hugged and then she prayed the sweetest prayer of comfort over me I think I have ever heard.  She was moving because another man (not her ex-husband) had chosen to love her and her son as his own and they were to be wed that weekend.  We hugged again, knowing we would probably never see eachother this side of heaven. Seeing her was grace and mercy and love and compassion all rolled into one.  It was the first blessing of my hospital stay.

The second blessing of my hospital stay was the pulmonologist assigned to my case.  He said the pain was caused by a pleural effusion (fluid in the lining of my lung).  He could drain it, but it would be highly likely that he would puncture my lung so he chose not to...a decision he would later lament.  Although well into his 40's, he was intrigued by my case and by me.  On his rounds, he would sit and talk with me about EVERYTHING...he would even come by after his rounds to spend a little more time chatting with me.  Because of all my A&P, Biology and Chemistry exposure, I was able to converse intelligently about my case, treatment, etc.  He wanted to know why I wasn't pre-med...when I told him God had led me away from a pre-med major to a teaching degree, he was even MORE intrigued.  He was a new believer and wanted to know so much about my faith journey - where I had been, where I was, where I was going, what my favorite verse was, what I thought about...  He was also soon to be married and so there were MANY questions about being a newlywed.  If anyone had sat in on our little conversations, I'm sure they would have found it quite humerous.  He was a 40something doctor asking life and faith questions to a just now 21 year old college student.  BUT, we enjoyed our chats and the development of our friendship would play a key role much later...God had chosen him as my pulmonologist, given us common ground, developed our friendship for a very specific reason.  He would use this doctor to literally save my life...

After a week in the hospital (in isolation mind you) on IV antibiotics and bedrest for the most part, I was feeling much better and my lung films looked clearer so they sent me home...something they never should have done!

Part 2 coming tomorrow (hopefully)