Tap, Tap, Tap. Is this thing on?

Hello?

I am trying to see if I remember how to do my own post. Is it possible that it's been a month? My how things can change in the blink of an eye.

What started as a simple Saturday afternoon of me reading in bed and Michael taking Madalyn to a birthday party - that it turns out was actually on Sunday - turned into something vastly different.

When they came home from the party that wasn't, Michael told me that he threw up in my car and that his head was hurting so bad he didn't think he could stand. My first thought was gross. My head hurts...and now I have to clean puke? But...I got him settled and went to clean. It wasn't that bad because he'd actually opened the window. I figured he had a stomach bug, and went about my day.

About 10 o'clock that night he started wandering about the house. I can only think to liken it to sleep walking. He would talk to me. Respond to commands. Answer questions. Not necessarily answer them in a way that made sense. Some responses were like a word salad. Some were perfectly "normal" responses, but not an appropriate response to the question. He would pantomine pushing buttons, typing, making his lunch. He took all my clothes out of my drawers. He took drawers out of the bathrooom cabinets. Creating lots of general mayhem.

And finally in the early hours of Sunday morning, I had enough. And was scared. Scared because I could not get him to wake up. I decided to not call 911. I didn't want the girls to be scared. I got him dressed and into the van. With my mom assuring me that all would be well. He was probably just dehydrated.

When we entered the emergency room, we were seen right away. And he was admited under the title of "altered mental state." I think they thought he was on drugs. We were in a room with a doctor and three nurses before I could even blink. And I repeated the above story for the first of MANY times. They took blood. Hooked him up to...ummm...hospital things. And took him for a CAT scan. When the doctor came back and said to me "the CAT scan shows that your husband had an aneurysm," I was absolutely incredulous. My father died two years ago of an aneurysm...and that is immediately where my brain went.

The doctor went to consult with the neurologist on call. And to arrange for him to be transfered to another hospital that is equiped to deal with this sort of emergency. And then for the rest of the morning, things moved at a snails pace. And all I could think of was that he was still bleeding and that it was getting worse. Finally the paperwork was complete...and they decided to transfer him via helicopter.

Meanwhile back at the homefront, my mom arranged for the girls to stay with friends for a few days. And then she drove me to Emory University hospital. We were quickly met with two doctors (one of which became Cindy's Dr. Carl) who explained exactly what they were going to do. And what the might do depending on what they found. Later a nurse came to get me so that I could see Michael before he went into surgery. And I think seeing him like that was the most scared I have ever been. I can still picture him. Hooked up to a ventilator. His head shaved. His eyes taped shut.

And then. Well...I believe that Lizzy did an amazing job of documenting all of the hospital stay for you all.

On Monday of this week, I went to the hospital as usual. And I was immediately stopped by a social worker so that she could get me to help her locate a pharmacy near our house to pick up his medications because they were going to discharge him. I immediately freaked out again. No one told me we might be going home. No one told me to bring clothes for him. No one has told me about follow up doctor visits. Medications. What I need to be doing at home. No one had even gotten him to try stairs yet. I felt like we were being thrown to the wolves.

I guess my whining, complaining, and huge list of questions worked...because he wasn't released until Tuesday afternoon.

Tuesday went well. We came home. Had lunch. Ventured back out to Tar-jay to get his prescriptions filled. We should have been provided with an armored guard based on the value of those meds. We came home. The girls came home. Had dinner. You know. Usual stuff. Then around 7pm, Michael fell asleep in front of the tv. It was only an hour. But when I woke him up. It was like that very first day. The word salad. The answers that didn't fit the questions. And we were back in the emergency room all over again.

They are not exactly sure what happened. But they did every test they could think of. And we were there for 10 hours before the sent us home at 6am. With a new prescription. And bone tired. We spent most of yesterday trying to catch up on sleep. And today, I am going back to teach my Latin class. Michael has a friend of his that is going to come and hang out with him since he cannot be left alone yet.

We are in for a long road of therapies. Physical. Occupational. Speech/cognitive. But he should completely recover. And I don't even want to think about what could have been.

Thanks to all of you for your prayers. For the posts dedicated to us. Your continued comments. Emails. Goodies that arrived in the mail. I have read every word. And I have been reading your posts every morning. And soon I am hoping to really get back into the swing of things. With non medical posts. And back to commenting. And something resembling normal.