why i treasure every day i'm alive, part 2

I tried to laugh it off, telling myself to stop worrying and just let the pills work. They WERE just over the counter medication after all. I shook the bottle, the pills clacking against eachother--there were still some left. I hadn't taken the whole thing. I'd be fine.


My mind, garbled as it was, wasn't buying that.



I found the number for poison control and called. Trying to stay as calm as I could, even chuckling here and there, I explained my situation to the woman on the line. She told me I'd be in for a heck of a night--that sometimes, at that dosage, the pills would actually have an opposite effect and hype me up-- but as long as I didn't have a heart condition, there shouldn't be any issues.



There was a pause. "Um, I do have a heart condition" I finally answered "Mitral Valve Stenosis. I was just diagnosed with it last month. My heart was enlarged for a few weeks".





"Then sweetie" she replied "get your butt to the emergency room".




It was 1 am. As a further demonstration of how out of it I was, I got into the van and began to drive myself the 2 miles to the nearest hospital. I barely got to the end of our street when I thought how stupid it was--to be driving under the influence of who knows how many sleeping pills. Turning around, I phoned my sister-in-law and explained what was going on. She said she'd be to our house in 15 minutes and to have Brad drive me to the ER immediately.



Imagine how I felt having to go home and ask him to take me. I did it. He did it.




Halfway to the hospital, the medication began to work. I couldn't hold my head up. I started not understanding the words coming out of my mouth--they seemed distant. Suddenly, my head filled with a sound that can only be described like the entire ocean swelling up behind my ears. There was a loud pop and then an enormous whooshing sound. It felt like someone was squeezing at my heart and I couldn't catch my breath. I screamed "I'm dying! I'm dying!"


I felt Brad grab my shoulder--barely hearing his words over the sound in my head. "Don't die!" he told me "your boys need you. You are needed by so many people". Finally he added... "I need you."



I repeated the names of our boys over and over, trying not to give in to whatever was trying to take me. And I prayed and I prayed and I prayed. I felt so stupid, so unworthy. I had done this to myself, but I knew only God could get me out of it.


We arrived at the hospital. They put me in a wheelchair and took me back to a room. My eyes were open but I couldn't see anything except black-gray. I had been to that emergency room several times the month previous with the Rheumatic Fever and recognized where we were just by the sounds and smells. In my head I was laughing at myself. What must I look like? What must I seem like? I was the girl who HATED drama!--Who did all she could to avoid it! The girl who never got sick. The girl who just went along living her life, dealing with the trials sent to her as best she could--and mostly silently. Who was this girl slumped over in a wheelchair they were shouting "suicide attempt" about?



They moved me into a bed and slapped heart monitors on my front and back. Now, mixing in with the ocean-like whooshing came the rapid "beep beep" of my heart. There were doctors voices--all of them talking to each other and maybe to me--I wasn't sure. A woman's voice was most prevalent--she wouldn't stop talking--she asked me a million questions. I heard her take Brad out in the hall and ask him questions too. I heard his answers. My head was spinning with the amount of sounds now churning inside of it--trying to grab on to one of them as reality.





(final part tomorrow)