Well, it's four o'clock in the morning. That says a lot, I guess.
I went to the National Day of Prayer gathering on the steps of the Galveston County Courthouse yesterday at noon. I try to get there every year. Some of the pastors in the city get together and develop a program that this year included a band of kids that played the national anthem and God Bless America. Played it well, too. As I usually do when I go into a meeting, I turned my phone off. When I turned it back on as I headed to the truck, I saw that Chris had called. Kind of unusual I thought, since I had just seen her less than an hour ago. Worried, I called her right back.
She told me that the fire department got there first and the paramedics had just arrived and Nathan was already there and Mom had had a spell of some kind. I'm not sure what order all those things came in, because there was obviously a swirl of activity going on as she spoke. My brain slowly processed what she was saying. "Fire department" wasn't all that unusual, since she also mentioned Nathan. "Paramedics" threw me. When I finally reached the part about Mom my warning sensors were flashing. Needless to say I rushed home to find one of the fire trucks and the ambulance still parked in front of the house.
Chris said she had been helping Mom with a bath when her head slumped forward. That's not unusual. She has done that with more and more frequency. But she didn't respond when Chris kept telling her to lift her head up, so Chris lifted it for her. She was beginning to turn blue around her mouth and the rest of her face was ashen. Chris couldn't find a pulse. She finagled the shower curtain around so she could lay Mom back onto it and ran to get her phone. She called me first, then moved to Nathan. He called back on his way over and kicked into fire fighter mode. Didn't take him long to call 911. By the time he arrived at our house the ambulance was on its way.
I rushed in to find Mom in her bathroom sitting on the toilet with an oxygen mask over her face – a good sign I guessed. She was surrounded by medical personnel, with Chris and Nathan in the middle of it all. She didn't appear to be with it at all, but she was obviously breathing. They brought in a very cool little wheelchair looking thing that unfolded and fit through even the bathroom door. That's how they got her to the stretcher by the front door. Chris was answering questions from the paramedics and Nathan was asking others of the fire fighters. Nathan was allowed to ride in the back with Mom and Chris was strapped into the front, all the while talking through the little window with the medic. It was kind of an odd feeling actually. They had it all covered. There was not really anything for me to do but grab Chris a long sleeved shirt and follow in the car. Actually I stopped by Nathan and April's and gave her the keys to their car. Gave me something to do so I wouldn't feel completely left out. Kel came down later and took her to pick up their car.
I was not far behind the ambulance when I got to the emergency room. They of course wouldn't let me go back to her room, though. I had to follow proper procedure and check in at the welcome desk. All that being done, I texted Chris and Nathan to let them know I was there. He came out shortly after that and traded places with me. He stuck around in the waiting room until Kel came and gave him a ride home.
Other than drawing blood and doing a sight check and asking questions, the first test was a CT scan. It didn't show any evidence of stroke, and she was responding pretty well by then. After that everything seemed to slow down. Guess that was the main thing they were concerned about. Over the course of the evening they took several chest x-rays and drew more blood. A few different doctors came by to ask the same questions over and over. Chris was in nurse mode, though. She had the facts down and rattled them off without hesitation. They all said that she would be admitted for at least overnight.
Mom's biggest complaint was her mouth. She had had dental surgery last week, and ever since she has been having pain of one kind or another in her mouth. It's been hard to judge how bad she hurts, because her pain threshold is very low. I warned the nurse that the typical UTMB question, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is the pain?" was not going to work. Sure enough, when one doctor asked it anyway, she immediately replied, "Ten." They finally gave her some Tylenol to help with her discomfort and she dozed off and on.
By 9:30 or 10:00 it became apparent that an actual hospital room was not in our immediate future. The nurse even came in and said if one didn't come open soon they would move Mom to a different bed that would be more comfortable than the ER stretcher. Chris insisted that she was staying for the duration, so I finally left to get Mom some clothes and try for a few hours' sleep. I stopped by Randall's to grab some milk for breakfast and some of the soft drinks they had on sale. Can't believe I remembered that. A few hours' sleep is about what I got. By 3:30 I was wide awake.
And here I am. I still have to work on the sermon for Sunday, and I have a wedding rehearsal tonight and a wedding tomorrow night. Our big Craft Fair is at church tomorrow, and I still have to drive up to Sam's and get some buns and soft drinks for the barbeque. This promises to be yet another interesting weekend in the Vaughan Saga.
2 Corinthians 1:3-5 says, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows."
Father, bring some of that comfort to Mom. And help Chris get a little sleep. Amen.
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