School of Change

I have never been good at handling change. Good or bad. I like my life to be predictable.

Apparently that is not what God wants for my family.

So as Elisabeth goes to school to learn the 3 R's, I need to go to school and learn to accept the unpredictability of life.

We spent last week preparing for a road trip to Duluth, MN for a family reunion. It was going to be a long weekend of fun and bonding. We got on the road Friday morning around 9:00, and at 10:30 made a very long pit stop at the hospital. One of my least favorite places.

Mark woke up with some of the same back pains and twinges of elbow joint pain in his left arm. The same pains he had when he had a heart attack, but this time only a 1 or 2 on the pain scale. He and I discussed and debated over whether to go on the trip or not, but decided to start driving and see if the pain got worse.

It didn't really get worse, but Mark's eyes had worry written all over them. So he called his cardiologist, who by the way, had just given him a clean bill of health the week before, and he suggested Mark take a "quick" detour and stop in an ER to have his heart enzymes checked.

So that's what we did. His EKG looked normal. His troponen level was normal (that was very high when he had his heart attack). His cpk was elevated though. The cpk only checks muscular something or other, not specifically heart issues. His de-dymer (NO idea how to spell that), which measures the potential for clots being formed, was also elevated but a CAT scan showed no clot. And the pain that he was having? It disappeared on its own within the hour.

We sat in the ER room for hours. We questioned why we even stopped, frustrated that we were losing so much road time and watching the out-of-network dollar signs go "ka-ching!" every time another Dr. popped his head in the room. Of course we knew that stopping was the right thing to do, but sitting in a hospital was the last place we wanted to be. We kept waiting for them to say Mark could go on his merry way.

They never said that.

Because of Mark's history, he's now considered a 'high risk' patient. So, they admitted him.

UGH! Talk about throwing a wrench in the plans!

The Dr. strongly recommended Mark staying so that they could take two more sets of bloodwork, each 8 hours apart, to be 100% certain that he wasn't having a heart attack. So, he sat in a hospital bed from 2:00 pm to 9:30 am the next day.

The hospital we stopped at happened to be near Mark's sister's house, which was a perfect coincidence, as the girls didn't have to spend the entire time being stuck in the hospital too. Their Aunt Barb picked them up around 1:00 and they spent the day on the farm. They had a blast! And when I came to the house that evening to crash and asked Elisabeth if she wanted to go visit Mark in the hospital, she chose to stay at the farm and ride the horses. Poor Mark, the horses got chosen over him!

We missed the family reunion.

And that's okay, because there will be another reunion next year, but we only get one chance at life, and we will do whatever it takes to make that life a long and healthy one. We were so happy that Mark didn't have a heart attack this time, but I still couldn't shake this feeling of sadness. It took days and a couple of great friends to help me realize that my sadness stems from mourning our old 'normal.' Now we have this new normal, where we need to be cautious and aware, and we need to accept that our plans can change in the blink of an eye. And that sucks! Much like stress sucks.

Speaking of that, we're fairly certain this isn't helping Elisabeth's anxiety levels. Which makes sense. I was just hoping to tip the scale in the other direction, you know? So we are working hard on talking openly with her about anything and everything. She and I talk to Charlie cat in heaven at night. She tells him how much she misses him, she tells him about her day, she tells him that she's so happy that her daddy is home. It's a good release for her.

So, this school of change - I'm working on it. My #2 pencils are sharpened. I'm sitting at my desk. I'm learning. Every day I work on learning to accept change. I don't like it, but I have to accept that these are the cards God has dealt us, and that He can change them in a blink of an eye. I have to trust Him. That sucks, because I'd rather lay down on the floor and throw a fit, kicking my arms and legs like a toddler. I've kind of been doing that in my head, and I'm trying to work through it. It's hard, but I will keep working on accepting His plan.

Maybe someday I'll get my A+!