It all started a few weeks ago with a phone call. My husband was on his way home from work and had become violently ill. He pulled over to call me.

What? Are you throwing up? Do you have a fever? Are you breathing? Can you drive? Where did you go for lunch? What did you eat? Do you think it was poison? Do you see a light? Do NOT go towards the light!!

No, I’m not prone to frenzy. I jotted down his location and told him to deep breathe for 5 minutes and call me back. I paced, reviewed my newly acquired emergency skills and considered my options.

1) Call 911 and send rescue dogs
2) Wake the kids up, pile in the car and go fetch him
3) Wait 5 minutes - maybe he’s okay.

I waited. He called back and although he sounded no better he said he could make it home.
He did.

My husband was incredibly ill that night - so much so that 911 was nearly dialed twice. While he lay suffering in bed and refusing to go to the hospital, I gathered his symptoms and had a long visit with my favorite doctor - Dr. WebMD. Together we came up with a few possibilities and none of them were pretty.

1) Mini stroke
2) Heart attack
3) Severe allergic reaction
4) Throat virus

All of these diagnosis can be fatal. I told him the grim news but he still refused to seek medical attention.

The next morning, though, he went straight to the ER where they diagnosed him with a severe throat virus and admitted him immediately. They told him,

“You should have come in sooner, sir. You could have died.”

Yeah…somebody else said that, too.

He was placed on a candy store variety of meds and released to go home and mend. It wasn’t an easy mending.

Fast forward one week to a normal morning where I’m in class about to workout. I receive a call from the middle school on my cell phone.

K, your daughter is here in the infirmary. She slipped and fell while exiting the bus this morning and landed on her back. She seems to be having some pretty painful back spasms. I think you should come and pick her up.

Crap. It was 9 in the morning. She had a sleepover planned for that night. She never calls in sick. This must be serious.

I quickly dressed and drove to the school like a banshee from hell all the while shooing thoughts of my daughter confined to a wheelchair from my mind. (I hate it when your brain freaks out on you. It’s so not fair in a crisis.)

When I arrived, she was in tears and it hurt her quite a bit to walk. I raced her home and propped her feet, got her iced and properly full of Motrin. Then I got on the phone to the doctor.

Your only appointment is in 20 minutes? Fine. We’ll be there.

Zoom. An hour later (yes, an hour), we were standing in the doctor’s office waiting room. We were standing because it hurt her most to get up from a seated position. The Motrin had kicked in though and she was feeling a bit better. I was rubbing her head when I spied the nasty red bump behind her ear.

We need to get that checked while we’re in there.
Noooooooooo! It will hurt!!!

This had been going on for a while at home. It seems that somehow my daughter, with the very sensitive skin, got an irritation from her earring and it became infected. Or at least that’s what we thought. But the infection never went all the way away. It was being pesky.

After the sweet doctor checked her vitals and then examined her back, he said she would be fine. He prescribed what I had already started at home - ice, rest & Motrin. Whew. Then I asked him to take a look behind her ear.

He examined the bump and was concerned and puzzled. These are not two things you like to see in your pediatrician when they are looking at your child, btw. He used words like “serious” and “removed” and asked us to wait while he phoned a specialist.

For the second time in one day, my heart raced while I tried not to think of all of the bad things this bump could be. As I strained to hear his phone call from behind the closed door, the word tumor kept bouncing around in my mind.

He returned with an Rx for penicillin and a referral to a local ENT. He had even scheduled her an appointment for the next business day. I told you he was sweet. I think at that point he realized that he had me scared to death and read my mind,

“Don’t worry, Mom. This isn’t the big C. It’s something external that’s causing this and it’s very infected.”

After much relief and a week of meds, the bump is almost gone. We go back to the ENT today to see if anything (he thinks maybe a cyst) needs to be removed.

Fast forward another week. My husband had finished all of his prescribed antibiotics and still felt like hell. If you haven’t already gathered, he’s not the doctor-visiting type so he had not gone in for his advised follow up. He decided to go his doctor because he was scheduled to fly that week and his ear was really hurting. His doctor told him,

They misdiagnosed you in the ER. You could have died.

As it turns out, he did not have any kind of throat virus. He had a severe allergic reaction that caused his airway to begin to close. In addition, he now had a raging infection in his throat and ear as a result. His doctor gave him a new fun collection of meds and sent him on his merry way.

To conclude this long-winded medical malady, I must tell you that my kitchen now counter looks like Elvis’ medicine cabinet. On top of all that my husband and daughter have been through, my dog was diagnosed with lyme disease and is now on 30 days of antibiotics and I have a new cavity, a hurt foot and a wicked head cold. The lady at Walgreen’s thinks I’m running a scam.

One funny thing: I taught class on Saturday with a very stuffed head and runny nose. The cold medicine was making me sweat more than normal so after wiping my nose in between songs, I also blotted my face. Wouldn’t you know that I started the next routine with a fine layer of tissue dangling from my forehead? Yep. Call me graceful.

I’m off to grab my daughter from school once again for a medical appointment. Hopefully this one will be the last.

UPDATE: **Nope! One more to go. The doctor removed a small cyst from behind her ear today that required 2 stitches. (I got to assist by holding her ear back while trying not to gag.) So we have to go back and have those taken out next week.**

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