Funding Our Local Hospital

The past month has been plagued by hospital trips for our family!! It started with Myrna who called us early one morning quite short of breath and asked us to call an ambulance and have Jared come over. She had been quite dizzy all through the night and it just got progressively worse. Once taken to Vulcan she was doing much better and they were able to determine it was Vertigo. Jared took her up to Calgary to have a CT scan to rule out blood clots! She was able to go home but it took awhile for her to get her bearings back.

The next trip was for Armin, he had been waking up with goopey eyes for a few days and it only seemed to get worse.  The day I decided to take him into the doctor his eye was swollen shut and the skin all around the eye was red, in a perfect circle.  We went to the walk in clinic and waited 2 hours when we were finally transferred over to the emergency room. It was busy and rather full! The doctor looked in on us as he was passing by and did a double take when he saw Armin's eye. All he said is "that's not pink eye and it could be quite serious, I'll be back as soon as I can to check it out." So guess what I did, panicked!  I texted Jared but he was not responding with a speedy reply, so I texted Myrna.  At 8 pm Jared surprised me when he came into the hospital, Myrna had gone to get him from the field since by then my phone had died.  The doctor did come back in not long after first poking his head in and he was able to determine what Armin had was a skin infection around his eye, and if not treated properly it could move into the brain causing the eye to go blind, and in more severe circumstances it could move into the spinal column. So after being there for 7 hours and Armin sitting so still and being so awesome while giving blood for a test we were sent home with antibiotics. The blood test determined there was indeed an infection as well it also showed that he is anemic, something I always suspected because he is soooo pale, but that is something we will have to deal with later.  The doctor decided not to send us to the children's hospital because Armin was so full of energy the entire time we were at the hospital.  The only reason to send us to the children's hospital would be to give him the antibiotics through intravenous so he would get them faster.  Never have I been so grateful for how energetic our boys are until then!!!!

The next episode was with me!! I felt fine all day, Emry and I even went out and watered trees, I was able to clean our house and catch up on laundry. Though at 6pm I started to feel a tightness in my chest and it hurt to take a deep breath and when I did I would instantly start coughing.  I ignored it because we had guests over for supper but once they had left and I was laying with Armin at bedtime I realized just how bad I was.  I was totally reminded of the symptoms when I had the pulmonary embolism. I texted Jared, he was out baling, and when he came in he told me I was going into the hospital. He didn't want to play around after what happened three and a half years ago.  So in we went. We were the only ones there and the doctor came quite quickly.  After listening to my chest, putting me on oxygen, taking a blood test and doing an ECG, the doctor determined my INR blood levels were in fact low (meaning my blood was thick) but no sign of a clot. And my ECG showed a normal heart rhythm so he decided what I was experiencing was adult induced asthma, brought on usually do to allergies.  I do suffer from hay fever and with all the forest fires around the province the smoke has been heavy in the air. And when the wind switched in the evening from the south to the north that is when I started to feel the tightness in my chest. I was sent home with a ventolin puffer which has been great.  I still feel tightness in my chest and if I happen to exert myself at all or even just walk up and down the stairs it is much worse. I take two puffs of the ventolin and I do feel much better.  I hope this isn't a lasting thing but I'm so thankful it wasn't a blood clot, I can live with asthma but I can't and might not live if I had another blood clot.

So with all our trips to the ER recently we have been joking that a wing of the hospital should be named after the Puzey's!!!!!!! We are all doing much better and are so thankful for the little hospital we do have, if making frequent trips there will ensure it always stays open I guess we are just doing our part!!