My Nightmare!

We ate at Chili's a couple of nights before we were to leave Indiana. I had one of my favorites, chicken fajitas! We had an enjoyable time and then much later in the middle of the night.....something happened....an abnormal rumbling in my belly. To spare all of the "lovely" details, I will just say that I became one, sick gal.

It was time to come home on Sunday, and let me just say...that was the single most maddening event of my life. Almost fifteen hours of jostling around in the truck and feeling like an accident could possibly happen at any moment...it was not the best of times. I prayed the entire way home, "Lord, just let me get home, and then, together, we can handle the rest." Well, that is exactly what He did for me. As soon as we hit the driveway to our home, I ran into the house...after hurdling past the poor sleeping children in the second row.

Once in the house, I made it to the back of the house where my bathroom and bedroom awaited me and that is the ONLY part of the house that I saw for the rest of the night.
At about 3:30 a.m., I called for Chris from the facilities by compiling all of the energy I could to slightly tap on the wall and produce my, what it seemed as, whispering yell....he came, he heard me, Thank you, God! I was dehydrated from all of the "fluid expulsion" from the past fifty some hours...I was sick! The sweat was pouring out of every inch of my body, I was blacking out and I didn't think I was going to make it. In fact, I told Chris that I didn't think I was going to make it and shared my concerns that I wasn't going to be able to say good-bye to the children. My chest hurt, my blood pressure felt like it was bottoming out, I was having a hard time breathing, and I didn't know whether to sit on the throne or to hover over it! The pain was worse than anything I had ever experienced. I was scared and told my hubby that I needed to go to the E.R. He knew that I was serious after these moments. He placed a wet cloth on the back of my neck and it gave me the shivers, so I decided to lay down and cover up.

I don't know if I blacked out or just fell asleep, but when I woke up, we went straight to the hospital after Chris dropped the kids off at a dear friend's house that agreed to help us without as much as a flinch! Thank you, Lord, for such great friends that we are blessed with.
Chris said in the waiting room at the E.R. that I was diving in and out of consciousness...I don't really remember. When they rolled me back to be seen, my blood pressure couldn't be found, it was so low. They immediately started pushing fluids through an I.V.

The blood tests came back positive for campylobacter, which is food poisoning. They admitted me and I stayed overnight with a bolus of fluid as my dinner. I was starting to feel alive again!
I am home now and feel immensely better, still do not have all of my energy back, but I will take what I can get. I am just thankful that we made it to the hospital when we did. God is good and He was with me and my family through this entire catastrophe!

My hubby says pretty soon I will be back to my old sassy self! haha
Thanks to all that helped us out, prayed for me, called, and visited me in the hospital.....! Love you all!

Conversation At Dinner Tonight.

David is thinking that he may want to buy a wedding ring (when the time is right, of course) from Wal-Mart so he is able to tell if his lady really loves him. We discuss this for a moment and here comes the funny:

Andrew: "Hey David....at your wedding I can be the ring burier!"

We all had a great laugh, including Andrew!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Dad/Grandpa Jim! We are sooooo excited to go on the cruise with ya later in the year! Have a wonderful day and see you next week!

Love ya....the Smith Gang!

Tragic.

.........praying for all the families that have been affected by the flooding this morning.

Que Sera Sera.

I went to our local KFC/Taco Bell the other night to buy some tacos for the kiddos. I placed my order and then the drive-thru operator told me that they were no longer a Taco Bell, just a KFC! WHAT?? There are not that many dining options in this little town and now they are downsizing?? That makes perfect sense to me. They discontinued serving last week and they had taken the sign down that day.

I heard that Taco Bell had requested the owner of that franchise to broaden the Taco Bell menu and he/she declined, so they lost the contract! Way to go, owner! I don't even know if anybody even goes to KFC...it's so gross! I guess we will see if it stays open or not??

Goodbye, my weight watching bean burritos....you will be missed.

I said thank you, rolled up my window, and drove away bamboozled.....

The Next Day...Or Three!

Okay, David, I know that I said I was going to continue your birthday wishes the next day, but ol' Mom just became a little too occupied with other things...like you! Haha...j/k.

Just wanted to say that you are a great kid and I love you very much. You are the eldest of the Smith clan so with that comes some ups and downs as I am sure you have discovered! Hopefully, the good outweigh the bad!

You will be the first to drive, but probably will have the most rigid curfew, I don't know! They say parents become more flexible after each kid....I suppose we will see. You don't have to wear any hand-me-downs from your little brothers, you leave for college first, and you get to stay up the latest! You will; however, lose your bedroom at the house first (haha, I mean, Mom's scrapbooking/sewing room), be used as a free babysitter at some points, have had all the newly learned parenting techniques (some good, some not so good) experiemented on you, and be held at different/higher standards than the younger kids. With all this said, I still think you like your ranking status!

I treasure all my years with you and look forward to what God has in store for us in the future! Thank you for being the loving, sensitive, sweet boy (I mean young man) that you are and never lose sight of the big picture. I know you have to deal with a lot of things that a lot of people do not, but there are also a lot of things that you DON'T have to deal with that a lot of people do! I know that it is hard to remember that some times, but I have NO doubt that you are going to do amazing things because God made you exactly the way He wanted you to be. With that said, I wouldn't want you to be ANY different than you are!

I love you,
Mom

Happy Birthday Kiddo!

Today is David's fourteenth birthday!

Here you are at just four months old!

Happy birthday...hope you had a great day. I love you.....will write more tomorrow. Mom is tired after today's multiple events (all fun events, though).