Greetings, y'all! ππ
Well! 2025 isn't going at all the way I thought it would. January took 6 months to get through. I was looking forward to February, because I was going to be celebrating a milestone birthday - the big 5-0! - but the universe had other plans.
On the evening of February 1st, my husband began having trouble breathing and became very weak, and his blood pressure had dropped to a dangerously low level. He had been feeling poorly for about 8 weeks already, but at this point, he agreed that he needed immediate medical attention. I called for an ambulance, and he was brought to our local hospital's emergency department. Blood tests revealed that he was in diabetic ketoacidosis, was severely malnourished, was dehydrated, and had an intestinal blockage. (Side note: he has a disease called 'gastroparesis', which affects his digestive system and causes problems with digestion and nourishment. This is a result of many years of uncontrolled diabetes. He had been receiving regular care for the diabetes in recent years, but the damage had already been done.)
He was admitted to the hospital's intensive care unit, where he received IV insulin to bring his blood glucose level down, as well as IV fluids and medicine to bring his blood pressure up. He developed sepsis and went into septic shock while in the ICU at our local hospital, so they started IV antibiotics treatment. They transferred him to a larger hospital 3 days later for more tests that they weren't equipped to perform, and he spent another 3 days in the critical care unit at the larger hospital. They were able to stabilize him enough to move him to a regular room, where he stayed for another 6 days. He was discharged last week, after a total of 13 days in 2 hospitals.
The doctor in our local hospital's emergency department was very frank with me and told me that my husband was very close to the end of his life when he came in. He was in critical condition for 48 hours, then upgraded to 'guarded', where he stayed for another 48 hours. Once he was upgraded to 'stable', we knew that the immediate crisis had passed.
Hubby and me in July 2005 - 30 years ago when we were still young...ish. π
I can't say that I was necessarily scared that he would die, but I did have to face the reality that not only was his dying a possibility, if he didn't respond to their immediate treatment, his death was likely and imminent. Knowing how close he was to death, I could do nothing but watch and pray like I've never prayed before. I wasn't ready to spend the rest of my life without him in it. Not then. Not now. God answered my prayers by pulling him back fully to the land of the living.
β¨Side Questβ¨: It was around this time last year that I wrote a post about "going through it". At the time, I felt strongly compelled to have a "sit-down" with hubby and have a big talk about a lot of things that had piled up over our 30 years of marriage. I felt like this conversation had to happen now, because time was getting short. It wasn't an easy thing to do, but we both had our say, and finally cleared the air. Our relationship and marriage has never been better since that talk, and I'm thankful that we've resolved our issues. We've also learned to talk to each other without fearing an overreaction.
My 50th birthday arrived, and I spent the day with hubby in his ICU room. It wasn't exactly how I imagined I'd be spending my "big" milestone birthday, but honestly, it was the best birthday I've ever had. When he wasn't sleeping, we held hands and talked, and except for when they had to come in his room, the nurse and staff pretty much left us alone. The day was quiet, peaceful, and just nice.
When he was stable enough to be moved to a regular room, I stayed with him and slept at the hospital on the couch in his room. I helped him as much as I could, trying to be a good "nurse", which subsequently helped the real nurses and staff, because they had many other patients to see about. Helping him to the bathroom or writing down info that the nurses needed took some of the load off them, and by not being "needy", when he did require the actual nurse, they came quickly and did what needed to be done. We were always kind and appreciative, and I think they were a little sad to see us go when he was discharged. π
Since he's been home, we've had a whirlwind of follow-up appointments and there are new tests being scheduled. He has new medicines to take, and he was taken off a few that no longer benefit him. We're starting over from scratch as far as managing his health conditions goes. The easiest thing to change is our diet, but we have new routines to learn, patterns to watch for, and new knowledge to absorb. It's a lot, but we're a strong team, and we'll get through this together, with God's help. ββ€πππ€