Saturday, June 21, 2008

Don't ever say "I'm not dead", not even joking

Do you beleive in karma, or fate, or jinxing things? I don't know which this actually falls under, but two days after writing the last post that I jokingly titled "I'm not dead", I actually almost died. Creepy. That would be the reason for my absence the last 3 weeks. I've been recuperating.

Did you know that you can actually drink too much water? It's true. Although there were a couple other things that contributed to the seizure I had, that was the biggie. Apparently drinking too much water too fast seriously alters the amount of potasium and sodium in your blood, and those things are pretty important to your body functioning properly.

Then after the seizure there was too much of some kind of enzymes in my blood. You know how after you exercise you feel that burn in your muscles. That is this enzyme that is released by your muscles when they are torn. It's toxic. Well just imagine exercising every muscle in your body all at once. There was so much of this stuff in my bloodstream they were worried that my kidneys were going to shut down from the strain.

Through this whole ordeal I lost 3 days of my life. They had me so sedated that I don't remember them at all. That is the weirdest feeling for me. I'm a little bit of a control freak, a little OCD. Never in my life have I gotten drunk and blacked out or in any way done anything I didn't remember later. The closest I had ever come to that was that driving on auto pilot you do sometimes when you make the same boring commute every day that it becomes so routine and one day you arrive at work (or home) and think "I really don't rememeber driving here".

The whole thing has made me realize a few things. First, I have the most awesome husband in the world. Yes he may act like an overprotective as*#%@e sometimes, but it's only because he loves me so much. He actually told someone in the hospital that he would take me home in a wheelchair, drooling on myself, and still love me forever. It's making me cry again as I type it. Second, I am blessed to have the friends that I do. From the ones that stepped in to take care of my kids so my hubby could stay by my side in the hospital, to the ones that brought us food when we got home so he wouldn't have to cook, to the ones that have given me rides everywhere I need to go since I can't drive. Third, I realized that I need to stop taking life for granted. I need to stop acting like I can do anything and everything without consequence.

For years I have tried to do it all, work, volunteer, PTA, Girl Scouts, dance class, gymnastics, swim team. Trying to be the best mom and give my kids everything had me so run down that I was putting my health at risk. The doctor said that being over tired put me at risk for a seizure. The fact that my potassium and sodium levels were already skewed because of my diet soda habit probably contributed too, but I needed that caffeine to be able to get through my hectic days. Of course in the hospital nobody gave me 6 sodas a day, and luckily I probably slept through the caffeine withdrawl headache, but I came home cured of my caffeine addiction as well as with a new outlook on my life. I realized that I have three beautiful girls that need their mom. I still have a lot to do to raise them to be the people I want them to be, and I'm not going to be able to do that if I don't take better care of myself. I'm not done here yet.

2 comments:

Bethalea said...

yowza. love you lorna.

LenaLoo said...

Whoa... I was wondering! Glad you are doing better!