A Few Things...

It is a cool rainy Sunday morning here at my house and I am all alone. Mark took the kids to church and the house is very quite.

Well, this week didn't turn out anything the way I thought it was going to. I was fired up to start school, start my pantry challenge, and get things rolling back to as normal as they can be here at La Casa de Clark Chaos.

Monday night I started having sharp intense pains in my stomach and after two different ER visits I was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday. I was there until Friday night for pain control and tests to see what was wrong. Yesterday I spent the day sleeping and recovering and today I feel like someone has repeatedly punched me in the stomach. I guess I'm sore from all the poking and prodding and tests that were done.

We did find some answers and I'll be going back this week to get more information. What I have is treatable, but probably won't just go away for awhile. As a person who wants to just "get things done with" I don't like this news one bit.

Ladies, I learned something very important this week. If you KNOW something is wrong don't give up. Don't just come home and cry. Mark took me to the first ER and I was told something silly and sent home crying. I decided on the way home from the ER I wasn't ever going to make another decision in my life and I was going to send the kids to school and Mark could make all the important decisions about their life from now on. Of course I was exhausted from the pain and frustrated, but that is how I felt.

My mom came and took me to my regular doctor the next morning and he immediately sent me to the ER at his hospital. At this point I KNEW something was wrong and I was not leaving there until I had some answers. Or at least some pain medicine! :)

Trust your instinct. You are the one who knows about you.

And ladies, if you have a mom who will make sure you get the help you need and will take care of your children when you physically can't, be thankful. And if you have a mom who will cook for you and love on you and comfort you when you have to get another IV, be thankful. And you have a Mrs. Jennifer, who will drop everything and will come to help you, be thankful. And a mother-in-law who makes you potato soup, be thankful.

And you know when you promise to stand by your spouse in sickness and in health. Well, Mark lived it out this past week. Stomach issues are not pretty and there is really no way to sugar-coat them. They are what they are. And Mark made me feel like the prettiest, most important person in that hospital. He stayed with me and rubbed my hair, and helped me in the most undignified things I went through. He prayed for me in my ear as I was crying, scared to death, headed for tests. He made me laugh at myself when the option was either wither away from embarrassment or laugh. I know I talk about what a great guy Mark is a lot on this blog. Its because he is. He is far from perfect. He messes up.. And he has little things that get on my very last nerve, as I do his. But he is perfect for me. And I am thankful for him.