~~~

Tuesday, October 31

~~~

It was 2008 – 15 years ago when our grandson Jordan helped us choose a “good” Sunset Maple Tree and plant it in our yard. He was about 17 at the time and had previously spent time working at Root’s Nursery – the reason we went to him for assistance.

This is what the tree looked like on the last day of October. Good choice, Jordan.

~~~

Sometimes those of us who blog or post on Facebook get accused of only posting good things, ignoring to post about negative things that are going on in our lives. For that reason, I thought I would let you know what has been going in our recent health issues.

I woke up with a bit of a sore throat on the morning we came home from Maine – Wednesday, October 11 – and thought it wasn’t going to develop into anything until that Saturday (14) when I woke up with an aching body and fever. Things hadn’t changed much on Sunday, so I stayed home from church. By Monday I was feeling pretty good but had a lingering cough. It was a cough that lingered for two weeks and is only now beginning to get better. I tried most cough medications and cough drops. Nothing seemed to work until I took Mucinex DM this week. It was a cold and cough that sucked the “stuffings” out of me.

For that reason, Cerwin was going to our church’s revival meetings alone, while I listened on-line from the comfort of my La-Z-Boy. Monday evening (Oct 30) I got a call from our son, Jeff, saying that Dad had passed out at church. My sister had called him. Jeff was home, and farther away from church than our son Jere, so he called Jere before me and told me that Jere and Ian were on their way to church. All I knew was that our medical team at church was having trouble finding a pulse. I felt almost too tired and weak to deal with an emergency but began getting things ready in case we had to go to the ER, knowing that God would give me strength.

It was a long 15-20 minutes until I saw Jere and Ian coming up the road. Jere drove our car home with Cerwin onboard. Ian was driving their vehicle. I was relieved to see Cerwin get out of the car on his own, with fairly good color.

It seems that, while standing to sing the theme song, Cerwin began to feel faint, but didn’t want to make a scene by sitting down, and thought he would be okay until the end of the song. Well, he DID make a scene. We were told that he just sat down on the bench with a thud and knocked his arm on the end of the bench. That is when our medical people went to him and eventually helped him walk out of the sanctuary. Thankfully he was sitting only a few rows from the back.

Cerwin surmised that he was probably dehydrated due to not drinking much water lately. I took his blood pressure a few times before we went to bed and reported to Jere and Kristen. I also updated our other 3 children on what was going on.

Of course, our children and people from church were concerned and called or sent messages the next morning. No one was satisfied with his diagnosis that it was due to dehydration. He thought that, because when he felt faint at church (twice) two years ago, the doctor didn’t find anything wrong. Also, he had a heart echocardiogram a year or two before that. The doctor told him to drink more water, add salt to his diet and gain 5 pounds.

On Tuesday, I called the doctor to see if they had an opening that day. They did, but not until evening. (Which means, I kind of railroaded Cerwin into going to the doctor.) I think Cerwin was glad to go to the doctor. This time the doctor wasn’t satisfied that dehydration was the only problem, so he ordered a blood test, a heart monitor, and a scan of his Carotid arteries. He got the blood test and heart monitor the next morning. He must wear the monitor for a week. We are expecting to get a phone on Monday about an appointment for the Carotid artery test.

As of this evening he is doing well, and my cough is getting better. We are grateful for God’s healing and for good medical care at church and at the doctor’s office.

Pray with us that if there is something wrong, a medical test or person will find it. In the meantime, he is drinking a lot of water. 🙂