Life just keeps happening

This has truly been a "long weekend" aside from it being a holiday weekend I think to date it may be the longest lasting weekend of my life.  Dan woke me up saturday morning and said his stomach hurt really bad, after pulling out all my nursing skills and doing a quick abdominal assessment-we headed to the ER for possible appendicitis. It definitely was appendicitis, which my thought on that was 'no problem quick fix'. But then we ran into a bigger problem. Dans Blood Pressure in the ER was 240/140 at its highest. For anyone with minor medical knowledge- that is a very very high uncommon pressure- because people usually don't live with a BP that high. Dan has had past issues with BP due to a kidney problem and thought it was pretty much dealt with. So anyway we spent 2 nights in the ICU because they had to wait to take his appendix out until his BP went down. He was put on a Nicardipine drip and had a Arterial line to measure his blood pressure. Yesterday they switched him to oral meds along with the drip and then at 3am they turned off the drip. They moved him from ICU around 1030 and we were on our way home by 1230. From a surgical standpoint he is doing VERY well! He is sore and has some gas pain from the appendectomy but overall he is recovering well! However on the BP issue we truly don't know what is going on. He is on two oral meds and we are monitoring his BP from home. We will follow up with the nephrologist to figure out what exactly his going on, to take a look at his kidneys and his heart and other arteries that may have been damaged by his BP being so high. 

So that is the medical side. As far as the emotional side. I had a very sleepless night Saturday night. Luckily I had dans pocket bible in my purse and was able to spend time in the word and just praying. It was the first time I was truly alone to process. Dan was sleeping his parents had gone home, my parents had gone home.  It is a terrifying thought to have the most precious thing in your life be threatened. All I could do was let go and say "God-all of this stuff is yours anyway. Please take care of us, you have always been faithful. I know you are faithful" It is just a very interesting thing to have your faith tested like that...not to mention our brand new marriage. Lets talk about reality check. We certainly are getting to the sicker (and soon to be poorer) part of our vows quicker than we would have liked. 

Dan is disappointed and feels discouraged about this news. He is a strong man and doesn't like to be in a weak state, or to feel like he is a burden. He is not thrilled about the prospect of his upcoming appointments and tests to figure out what is going on- he hates the Dr/Hospital. And he isn't happy about being on BP meds from here forward or our new LOW SODIUM DIET!! (Im not too happy about that either) 

So thats the update with the Ballews. We are emotionally drained. Extremely Tired and Hanging on by a thread tonight. But we are thankful to have each other and thankful that we have a God that holds us in his hands and never ever leaves us.