June 17 – “A tiara and a tutu”

I am not very good at just sitting in a hospital room and waiting.    I had a rheumatologist appointment this morning, so I picked up Chris at the hospital.  Nothing new there.  He had three students with him, so he was in "Funny Guy Teacher" mode.  He asked them all kinds of questions about me.  He even had them look at the scar on the back of my neck and guess what it was from.  One of them finally said, "Some kind of neck surgery."  Ding, ding, ding. He did an exam, but the only thing I heard him say was that I had diminished reflexes in my legs and ankles.  Don't really know what that means.  Whatever it was, though, it made him do a double take and bump into the skeleton hanging in the corner.  The skeleton, by the way was dressed in a tiara and a tutu.  I told him she had been trying to get someone to dance with her ever since I got in there.  We had a good laugh, but the students didn't quite know what to think about me or the good doctor.  The problem was, right after that he and his entourage left.  Never told me what to do next.  Never developed a theory about why I was so fatigued and weak.  Best I could tell, I'm just supposed to keep doing what I have been doing and give the medicine time to work.  It can take three months before it kicks in.  And they came in and drew blood.  And the girl that drew blood said I was supposed to leave a urine sample.  It's always so much fun when everybody else knows … and you don't.   We were going to go out to eat, but Chris didn't feel comfortable leaving her Mom that long.  And she was really tired.  Mentally, emotionally, and physically.She texted me this morning at 6 saying how she was up and showered and ready for the day.  I welcomed her to the world of the morning person.  Come to find out, she had been up since 3 a.m.  No wonder she felt so good at 6.  It was the middle of her day already.   So we went back to the hospital.  And there we began to wait.  Her Mom's surgery this morning was successful.  But they wouldn't put her under full anesthesia because her lungs were filling up with fluid again.  So they just heavily sedated her.  As the day progressed, she regressed.  The fluid made it harder and harder for her to breathe.  They decided to contact the doctor who was originally going to put in the permanent chest tube and see if he wanted to go ahead and do it or just drain the  lung again.  He was in surgery, so we waited.  They finally did a chest x-ray and a ct scan.  And the waiting began again.  In fact we are still waiting.  Maybe in the morning.   Psalms 116:7 says, "Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you."   Father, in the grand scheme of things, I would sure rather you bring peace to Chris than pain relief to me.  Amen.