While I was in Florida, the last week of October, for a Sov Grace Leader's Conference, I became quite ill. My stomach hurt, I was nauseous and I couldn't eat. I thought I had an ulcer and the flu so didn't eat and rested as much as I could. On the day we were to fly out, I almost didn't make it and when I got home, spent the next three days in bed. Knowing I had a doctor's appt. on Monday morning, I was just trying to make it until then.
By Monday, not only was I very sick, I was trembling all over and couldn't stop shaking. When I got to the doctor's office, she took one look at me and sent me across the street to Emergency. Once there, after many tests, they came back to tell me that I had Stage 5 kidney failure and needed a kidney biopsy and transferred me to ICU. Because my blood levels weren't good, they couldn't do a biopsy until later so I waited all day Tuesday and most of the day Wednesday for them to stabilize. By Wednesday late afternoon, I started spitting up blood and they were concerned that I was bleeding in my lungs so they said they could do a voluntary intubation or try a procedure first and if it didn't work, do an emergency intubation - we chose the voluntary one in order to skip the first procedure and eliminate the risk of waiting.
That's the last thing I remember... waiting to be intubated and praying because I was really afraid. The next thing I remember, I woke up 9 days later to see my entire family around the bed - encouraging me and telling me that I was going to be ok.
Since I don't really know exactly what all what on during those 9 days - I have had to rely on information from the family to fill in the missing parts: that I was on a respirator and a machine that collected blood from my lungs, was receiving massive doses of chemo and prednisone, had a procedure called plasmapheresis, and daily dialysis....
After three days or so, Ron said that it looked as if I was dying (and the doctors said I was close, but don't give up yet.) so he took each of our children in to visit me- just in case. I don't think they had seen me yet, since it was upsetting to see me all hooked up to so many machines. He didn't want me to die without them seeing me first.
The entire family spent many, many hours in the waiting room and in my room - Zach took off lots of time from work and spent the night to give Ron a chance to go home to get some rest. Ron pretty much spent every night with me in my room. The nurses were so kind to let all the kids come in at the same time, ignoring the 2 visitor limit.
They spoke to me, read scripture, and held my hand, and just sat with me. At times the doctors would pull back the sedation and ask me questions - was I in pain? (the answer was always no.) could I squeeze their finger (I could). I don't remember anything, but the family says that I would open my eyes and would look and respond to them at times.
At some point, all the measures the doctors were taking to save my life - worked - and I started improving. My lungs stopped bleeding, they pulled back the sedation, I was awake and ready to start breathing on my own, so they took out the breathing tube. This is really when I start remembering - the whole family was around and I could recognize each person - I tried to talk but was very weak- and a little confused.
(End of part one. To be continued...)
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