So, we went to the ER...

This past Wednesday, I was coming out of a visit with some parishioners, who had graciously fed me a delicious lunch (have I mentioned I love what I do?), and saw that I had four missed texts and two missed phone calls from Michael, not to mention a Facebook post asking me to call him. This doesn't seem good, I thought.

"I'm heading to the ER."

What? Come on...

Michael had awakened that morning with a stitch in his side. 20 years ago, he had a spontaneous collapsed lung, something that apparently tall, skinny, white guys are susceptible to. Furthermore, once you've had it once, you're very susceptible to it happening again. He was having some familiar symptoms on Wednesday, and then said the pain was starting to appear in his lung. I suggested he call the doctor, and he said, "Ah, it's probably nothing." But then he called anyway, and the doctor urged him to go to the ER.

And so there we were. I was in pastor mode when he called, and usually when people call to tell me they are in the hospital, I ask if they want me to be there, and so I asked Michael, very matter-of-factly, "Do you want me to come?" He sounded confused and said, "I mean, if you're busy..." I thought, "What am I thinking? Of course he wants me to come - I'm his wife! This isn't like a, 'Just thought you should know' sort of thing. Come on, Johanna." 

And so off I went to the hospital. I found I was remarkably calm about the whole thing - ignorance or familiarity, I don't know, but going to the hospital is no big deal to me anymore! Though I admit when I walked in and found Michael in a gurney in the hall, it was strange. He is supposed to be the strong, well one, the rock. I'm the one in the gurney. It was a role reversal I wasn't quite prepared for.

As I approached him I said, "Thought I was getting too much hospital attention, huh? Wanted some for yourself?" He said yes, that was exactly it, then added, "Aren't you the one who is supposed to be in the hospital bed?" Even though the ER was not my first choice for how to spend a Wednesday afternoon, it was nice to get to see Michael in the middle of a weekday! We chatted about our days, like we usually do, as we waited for the doctor. Poor Michael was in a lot of pain, feeling light headed and very anxious, and having trouble breathing (especially deeply). They eventually put him on oxygen to help all of the above, and gave him some heavy pain meds. We continued to wait for the verdict from the doctor.

Finally he came over and said the X-Ray looked great, and it wasn't a collapsed lung. Thank goodness! He suspected it was pleurisy, an inflammation of the lung lining or something like that, and did some blood work just to be sure. Nothing came up in that either, so they sent us home. Turns out pleurisy and a collapsed lung have similar symptoms, but the former would have required probably a week in the hospital, and the latter allowed us to go home right away. Yay!

Michael was a little embarrassed about such a to-do about something that ended up being pretty small, but I'm fine not to have any major medical event in our lives for a while!