Coming Home From Texas

It's sort of an interesting story, so I thought I'd tell it here. We left Houston to fly home and it was 75 degrees outside. I brought some fuzzy socks to slip on over my sandals to keep my feet warm, since I'd heard it was very cold in Seattle. First off, our plane landed after skidding on the ice, but all was fine. Safety!

I'd lost my socks, though, so LoveHubbie gave me some of his, once we got our checked baggage. I think it was 23 degrees. The wind was blowing too. The off-airport parking lot was covered in ice. It was hard just to get to our car. We skated and held onto all the cars, which were packed in really close together, so it was possible to brace against them. It actually was funny. Those of you in the northeast wonder what parking lot does not put down salt or gravel or something to avoid accidents and lawsuits? But we made it into the car.

Then we had no scraper or anything to get the ice off the windshield with, so LoveHubbie tried a credit card, but it didn't work very well. We ended up just running the heater to let it melt (it took about a half hour).

Next, we couldn't get out of the parking space. My car (which LoveHubbie was driving since he feels more confident in the snow) was poised right next to the car on our left an inch or so away. So LoveHubbie finally gave up and got out, then slipped and slid up the hill to get to the staffed kiosk to find help. The one employee who was there (a teenager) came over with a shovel and some salt and we eventually got out. LoveHubbie is good at that. Driving in scary situations.

We made it home to a frigid house. LoveHubbie split the firewood, brought it in and started a fire, set up the humidifier, and we went to bed. It was about 6 hours after our plane landed, so the whole thing took us four extra hours. It felt like we'd been gone for at least a week.

Yesterday morning we woke up early to get ready for work and were going about our business when all of a sudden I had a swift, sharp, hard pain on my sub-scapula (the technical term according to LoveHubbie) that took my breath away, literally. It felt like someone had stabbed me. I've had all sorts of back pain, but not this kind. The pains kept coming frequently and randomly and I couldn't catch my breath. The rest of my back was okay, but the stabbing pain kept coming and I couldn't get my breath. After about a half hour of this, LoveHubbie thought I had a pulmonary embolism (from flying) and said I needed to go to the emergency room. Off we drove.

The ER doctors put me on oxygen so that I could breathe, then tried to get the pain under control. I was there all day having various tests done and was pronounced normal, just with some sort of weird intramuscular inflammatory pain that was in an area that affected my breathing. They didn't know what the heck was going on. Later in the afternoon I came home and went to bed. I am much better today (the pain is just moderate and does not interfere at all now with my breathing). I am fine, thanks to good medical care---even though they didn't figure out the cause exactly, they helped me get oxygen and the painkillers made the pain manageable. And thanks to LoveHubbie, of course.

Despite all of this, I am not sorry I went on the trip or for any of my troubles. I feel like I'm learning so much. Every problem was solved in its own time. I seem to be free of the ever-present anxiety that I've lived with for months and years and that I had when I left on Friday. It is a fantastic feeling. I'm hoping it's not temporary. The trip itself was full of miracles. Read this if you missed yesterday's post.

Everything is okay.

Everything is fine.

All is well.