Just When You Think

life's getting back to normal...

Normal gets thrown out the window.

Heck, the holidays are over. Life should be slowing down for me this month. I was looking forward to it. I should have known better. More importantly...if ever there comes a time when I think my life is worse than someone else's...intervention tends to give you a reality check. And in that moment, you realize...your life isn't so bad.

I've been sick...with that gawdawful nasty virus/flu/cold thingie that's been going around and taking people weeks to recover from. I felt pretty miserable. I called in for the first time in my career with the company I work for. I had virtually no voice. My sides, back and stomach were sore from all the coughing. Sleeping through the night was not an option...I'd wake myself up with the racking coughs. Sounds pretty awful, right?

And along came Anthony. I call him A1 because I have two of them...both Anthonys...both last names start with C's. He's one of my new employees. I'd sent him off to training in Miami. The first week went great! He came back excited and looking forward to his final week of training because it meant he could finally work on the floor. He was learning. It was thrilling to see. So when my phone rang in the middle of the day on Tuesday, the last thing I expected to hear was that my new 23 year old employee was in the emergency room...taken there personally by the trainer. Apparently he was experiencing chest pains, sharp head pains, nausea, dizziness...and with that, whenever the pain would strike...he'd lose his power of speech. He'd start slurring his words, stuttering, not making sense. Hearing the symptoms I wondered silently...stroke? Tumor? Unknown heart condition? And then the trainer said that one of the people there suspected a vascular migraine. He had a couple of tests...all came back good. But with his symptoms they wanted to keep him over night for observation. And they wanted to do a spinal tap. But by 5 o'clock, even that thought had changed. They'd admitted him to Intensive Care...because they noticed that everytime he had an onset of the head pains...his speech would go. They did the spinal tap, EKG's, MRI's, Brain scans...all came back good.

A week later they discharged my frustrated employee...no more knowledgeable about what happened than they were before. But with migraine meds and a lot of rest, the pain was going away. Or so everyone thought. Anthony was thrilled to be home. The hospital he'd been at had virtually no one but doctors and patients that spoke English...not even his nurses could easily communicate with him. He had to call his trainer if he wanted to know what was going on with his care. But he finally made it back home. He thought he was feeling stronger. Till yesterday. The pains were still happening. He's been afraid, and who could blame him! So he went to the Emergency room. And bingo...without the language barrier, and after more probing, something was finally figured out. First, he has low blood pressure...which is concern enough. But secondly, they noticed that while sitting or laying down, he was fine. But if he got up and walked a few feet his resting heart rate of 70 would jump up to over 110. Not at all normal. But now they've got him on some meds...and we've got a starting point.

And if that's not enough, I also spent yesterday talking to a broken hearted young lady...Tiffany...who found out that her husband doesn't want to stay and fight and work things out. He wants a divorce. She's devastated. And she's now questioning her entire self worth. At 21. He was her Jr. High sweetheart...and they'd had the fairytale wedding. Now she's just sad. And she's scared. And she's never really been completely alone. Yeah, she's heart broken.

And if I thought my problems of the moment were bad...all I have to do is look around me...and realize that this too shall pass.