Strong Enough? No- but I know who is!

It is a wonderful Wednesday afternoon, just going along in the day to day work. Logan is sick -again- and I had just made him a doctor's appointment- the latest appointment as I always try to do so that I have to take the least amount of leave from work as possible. Then, about 10 minutes later I get a call from my mom telling me my dad had been taken to the hospital and was about to be admitted (at least for a few days). I immediately called the doctor's office and moved his appointment to as soon as possible and grabbed my purse and left. At that moment I did not care about anything else. I did not care about the annoying lady on the phone saying "your voice mailbox is full" or the 27 emails I had not responded to or even the fact that I could not find a supervisor or our manager (it was lunch time). All I really cared about was getting home, taking Logan to the doctor and getting to the hospital. As soon as I got in the car to leave, my dad's sister, my Aunt Susan, called. This is very out of the ordinary seeing as everyone on my dad's side of the family is kinda distant ever since my Granny and Papa died. I really don't think it is intentional but rather due to some things that have maybe happened in the past, schedules, or even maybe the pain the swells inside when everyone is brought together. As we are talking she is kinda flirting around the question of "has your dad called" or "do you know what is going on" so I just told her that I knew everything or as much as everyone else at this point. Basically he had been slowly, progressively over a few days just not been able to breathe, his lungs essentially tightening, and Wednesday morning he had been up since 3am just sitting there waiting to go into work. He drove into work, which we find out now, is an act of God seeing as he could have passed out due to his oxygen levels and such. When he got to work, some of the teachers and/or administrators took him to the emergency room. He was admitted and soon diagnosed with asthmatic bronchitis. They promptly started injecting him with several things including blood thinners (to help prevent blood clots- since he would be there for several days), steroids, etc. Also he was given breathing treatments every 4 hours. There were some other things, but I cannot remember. It was pretty much like this every day in the hospital- tons of meds, etc. They only gave him enough lead on the oxygen tubing to go to the bathroom. So, he was pretty much restricted to the bed and chair. We went every day, spent the day, went to my moms then late night home. Get up the next morning, rinse repeat type thing. I just went ahead and took off Thursday to be there with him and I am already off on Fridays so it worked out. We were in there Saturday and they were starting to decrease his oxygen to try to get him ready for potential discharge so they gave him an oxygen tank so he could go for short walks if he could handle it. Keep in mind he could not walk to the bathroom and back just the day before without almost passing out. Well we went for a lap then came back to the room and rested a bit and then they did his breathing treatment. He tried to breathe deeply and went into a coughing fit- and passed out. This scared me like crazy! His eyes just rolled up and he fell back on the bed and his fingers were twitching- I started yelling "Dad, are you ok" he eventually sat up and had no idea what happened and was confused. Apparently he just coughed so hard it made him pass out? We told him from now on when that happens make sure he is sitting down or laying down. They also started him on Chantix. This is to help him stop smoking. He stopped before and had stopped for over a year and then started again. We are praying for a full stoppage this time! Also he has to change his diet. He was on a low sodium diet in the hospital and is going to do several things to change the diet ... i.e. sodium, calorie intake, fat... etc. And, he knows it and plans to change it but he can only focus on one huge hill at a time... I think he plans on going up the stop smoking hill first. So, we will see. I know it will be a long battle and will not be easy but Thank God that we don't have to be strong enough, because He is strong enough for the both of us!




Great segway huh! Love this song. It is so perfect for not only this situation, but just everything in life and throughout the day. I am so thankful that I have Him because I know I am not strong enough and I know I am not but that is ok because He is! He was discharged Sunday afternoon and has been just taking the meds they gave him and using his Cpap machine (for sleep apnea) to lay on the bed and try to take deep breaths in order to get the deep parts of the lungs working (and working well) again. He is doing much better and I am so thankful! I am hoping and praying that this will not only be a wake-up call for him but the rest of his family as well!