Wednesday, March 21, 2012

The One Where I Visit The Emergency Room

At the beginning of the year, I could feel my entire perspective changed as I began counting to 1000 gifts.

...And then our February happened, and we were spending every waking moment getting our home ready for us to move downstairs and for the upstairs to be rented out. And I just stopped writing my blessings down for that month, planning to pick it right up as soon as life slowed down a bit.

...But then a few bumps in the road came: I found out I had not been accepted to my choice graduate program yet, I became extremely sick with allergies, and was still feeling really down about the baby situation.  Or lack thereof.

It didn't take long before I was focusing on the bad things instead of the blessings.  Exactly the opposite of what I had set off to do at the beginning of the year.

Yesterday was sort of rock bottom for me.  It was my first day back to school after spring break, and a lot of people were talking about who got accepted to Akron, and I became jealous.  Also, I hadn't slept well in about two days because I had been coughing constantly and couldn't breathe well at all.  It's been in the 70s and 80s the past two weeks, and allergy sufferers are suffering early around here.  On top of that, the building where all my classes were held did not have the AC turned on, so it was probably about 85 degrees in there.

Right before my second class of the morning, I started panicking majorly.  I couldn't breathe, and I really didn't want to miss class because I was supposed to give a group presentation.  At the last minute before class started it became clear that I wasn't going to be able to sit in that building a moment longer, and I told my professor that I couldn't breathe, and was going to the emergency room.  Enough is enough.

So Luke met me there, and I got in right away (apparently respiratory problems trump a lot of others).  They gave me a breathing treatment, and afterwards, I wanted to cry because it was the first time I had been able to really breathe well without laboring in a week and it felt so good.  They also did a chest x-ray, and luckily there is no pneumonia.  They just said I have bronchitis and lots of inflammation, probably due to seasonal allergies.

They sent me on my way with some allergy medicine, Prednisone, and an inhaler.

Last night, after the medicine started to kick in, I felt like a new person.  Again, I almost cried, because I literally forgot what it was like to feel healthy!  I have been sick with sinus infections and coughs and labored breathing, the symptoms alternating just to be annoying I think, for a year.  Give or take about a month when I was being treated for the first sinus infection.

Last night, Luke was at band practice and I was practically dancing around the house, getting things done and feeling uber productive.  It is crazy what feeling well and having a little energy can do for a person!!

It made me think about all those years I took for granted.  When I was growing up, I was never sick.  All of a sudden about a year after I got married, I was suffering with multiple health problems.  But I have to say, on days when I'm feeling healthy, I appreciate it so much more!

Maybe God lets us go through the hard, scary times because He wants us to really be thankful for the good ones.

On Saturday my Mom gave me a little Tulip bulb in a jar filled with stones.  That day it looked like nothing, and I kind of wondered how it was going to burst up through all those stones to become something.  And today, four days later, this is what it looks like:

It had to break through those stones in order to grow.  And eventually it will be a beautiful flower.  God has to give us those tough times in life so we can become stronger and burst through them, becoming Something Beautiful.

So as much as this past week has been difficult, I know God is using all this waiting to build my character.  I know he is using the sickness to help me appreciate my health.  And after it's all said and done, I will have grown because of it.

***

So I know I skipped about a month and a half, but today I'm going to continue my count to 1000 gifts:

(First of all, I have a bunch from February that were posted on twitter, but never got posted on the blog, so I'll post them quickly without pictures)

81. A productive day
82. The smell of pepper and onions cooking on the stove
83. Singing to Pandora in the car
84. Felling energized by warm weather
85. Feeling a bit of relief from a sinus infection for the first time since November
86. Last class cancelled and heading home early
87. Getting home while it was still light out
88. Coatless in February!
89. Doing some hands on work in the speech clinic
90. Another surprise from Luke (a new camera)
91. A pretty clipboard since I love fun office supplies
92. Getting ready to embark on a new adventure. And the beginning of a new chapter [this was written the night we began work on the downstairs apartment].
93. Sleeping in on Saturday morning
94. Waking up to something beautiful [snow]
95. Someone to go through life's craziness with
96. Friends and family who are always there to help when we need it
97. The opportunity to be a bridesmaid for one of my best friends
98. Fun super bowl party with friends
99. Another sunny day
100. Made it to the gas station just on time [the gauge said "0 miles to empty"!]
101. Getting to shadow a speech pathologist all day
102. Pinterest-ing my heart out between classes
103. Delicious things
104. Beautiful afternoon

Wow, that was a lot that I hadn't posted yet!  And here are the new ones:
105. Doctors
106. A husband who sits with me all afternoon at the hospital
107. Medicine that makes me feel like a new person
108. Health insurance
109. A beautiful new place to enjoy 
110. A huge meal of breakfast for dinner to celebrate our new home
 
111. A much bigger kitchen to cook in

 

112.  Early daffodils seen through the bedroom window
 

113. The beginnings of a beautiful flower
 
114. Character-building trials
115. A new appreciation for feeling healthy!
116. An early spring

3 comments:

  1. So glad you feel better! How scary!

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  2. I love this idea of counting your blessings and writing them down. I think that's something I should start. I enjoy reading what you've written down :)Faith

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  3. I'm sorry to hear that, Jessica! It's so easy to take good health for granted, until you don't have it anymore (I know that too). So glad you are doing better now!

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