I'm an anomoly

First, I'm normal!  Well....as normal as someone like me can be.  I'm also as healthy as a cow (as I mentioned to Laura this morning), but now it occurs to me that it's "healthy as a horse".  Oh well,  I never get those things right.

I am also an anomaly.  You may not know that two weeks ago I suffered a siezure; a big one, like grand mal.  It was not pleasant, not in any way, shape or form.  But worse, to me, is that Scott and Jessica had to see it.  (Gordon was gone up to Scout camp). But this was the blessing, too.  Because of that, they were there to care for me and to call the paramedics.  Can you imagine the stir it created to see the firetruck and ambulance go to our house?

The last thing I remember, I was sitting in the big chair watching "River Monsters" with Scott.  We had been anxiously awaiting the time when we could watch it together.  The next thing I know, some guy is in my face saying, "Juuu-lll-iii-eeee, youuu'vvve haddd aaaa sssiiieeezzzuuurrreee."  Every feature in his face seemed overly animated and huge.  He kept asking me questions, none of which I knew the answer to.  He asked me if I knew Scott or Jess or Ben or Laura (who had gotten there by now).  I knew that I should know them but I didn't know anything.  Finally Laura came and knealt down by me on the floor and I looked up and waived to her.  It was so good to see a friendly face. 

I was then informed that I would have to go to the hospital.  It still hadn't sunk in that something serious had happened here.  Apparently, I had not been a very good patient when coming out of things, like pulling out oxygen and slapping the paramedics hands away when they tried to take vital signs. I gave a surprised look at the paramedics and shook my head, like, "no way I need to go to the hospital".  But I was with it enough to know that my sons could drive me and I did NOT need to ride in the ambulance.

So now that you have the basic idea from my perspective on how things went down, let me explain some really great things that happened.  Ben and Laura were able to get here within 10 minutes of it happening.  They were a great support to Scott and Jessica. By the time we got to the emergency room, all of the kids were there with the exception of Jo, who had to be home with the kids.  Scott had called our home teacher, Kyle, who just retured home from the Spain Barcelona mission and asked him to bring some consecrated oil to the hospital. 

Then, in a private room, all of my sons, Kyle and Gordon annointed and blessed me.  This is the only time in this whole experience that I felt warm and secure and safe and that all would be well.  The other great thing that happened is that Gordon happened to walk to his truck to check his phone and call Scott to see if he got the MTC job.  There is only patchy coverage up in the mountains and Scott had been unable to get through.  As soon as he dialed, Scott answered and told him what had happened.    After they hung up, Gordon had more questions and, without moving, called Scott back.  He couldn't get through.  No coverage.

So that is how, within the hour, Gordon was with me at the hospital.  When he got there, he said, "you should have told me you didn't want me to go to Scout camp and I would've stayed home."  Apparently, I laughed.

Some amount of time later, I finally got back to see the Dr. and had a CT scan and some blood tests.  Everything turned up great on these and they ordered me to get some further testing; an EEG and an MRI and then see a neurologist to rule out anything else.  This all seemed to go really fast for me, but for my family, I'm sure it seemed like an eternity as it was 2:30 a.m. before we got home.

The past two weeks have been a roller coaster.  I couldn't remember things that happened a couple of days before or sometimes a day before. They have described having a siezure of this magnitude as if your brain were a computer re-booting.  It takes a while to come back and each program loads on it's own time.  I finally feel, after two weeks, that I am totally re-booted. 

Today I went to the neurologist.  You can imagine everything I had convinced myself I have after two weeks.  I feel like I have been walking around with two 50 lb. potato sacks on my back.  He doesn't know what caused the siezure and that is a good thing.  My brain is actually quite healthy and we know for sure that I have one.  If he knew what caused them, then that would mean there is something really wrong with my brain.  As it is, I am an anomoly; a statistic of  the random, one time siezure.

I left the two bags of potatoes in the Dr.'s office and walked out to a sunshiny day full of all the hope of the future and appreciation for my blessings.  And they are many.