Broken (Cont.)

Sunday afternoon my mom and I spent a few hours at Wal-Mart in Iron Mountain, Michigan getting some things that I forgot at home in the rush to get back up to school. Once we got back, my mom and I spent a majority of the afternoon moving my stuff into my room on third floor 322.

I got through the next two weeks in a lot of pain, but by God's amazing grace. Each day in my devotions I found something more awesome about my God, and something sweeter about His presence. The phrase "God is all I need" became very real to me, but I found myself changing it to, "God is not only all I need, He is all I want!" My mom came up on the 15th (Wednesday) and spent the day with me, and on Thursday, my mom attended chapel with me. After classes on Thursday my mom and I took off for home to have my gall bladder removed. We got home about 1:45 in the morning, and went straight to bed. The next morning I had to be at the hospital at 10:00 for preparation for the surgery. I had IV's hooked up to me, and fluids of some sort started, and they took some more tests (urine, and blood) and then just let me rest for a while. Finally coming into the room, the surgeon came in and asked me if I was going to be all right, or if I wanted something to make me relax when I'm in the surgical room. I thought about it, and chose to have the "relaxer" medicine. The inserted something into the IV in my hand and I immediately felt something akin to the morphine. I asked what it was, and the nurse described it as, "Sort of like a cocktail except it works immediately.". I tried to nod through the dizziness that I was experiencing, and shut my eyes.

I don't remember much after that except for "waking up" in a white room with three big round bowl shaped things with about 10 light bulbs in each of them, and having about four people with masks on around me. I don't remember . . . I remember hearing them saying something about that they were going to take my gall bladder out, or, something like that, and honestly, I was too drugged to care. They put this mask over my face, and they told me to breathe in a few big breaths. I remember seeing the mask come down over my mouth and nose, and trying to take a deep breath in. I remember . . . the smell of it . . . it was almost sweet . . . I think I took about 4-5 breaths in, and shut my eyes to blink or something, or maybe I did it just to rest my eyes, and next thing I know I'm waking up in this long corridor with a couple nurses on my left side checking vitals and stuff. I opened my eyes, looked around, and promptly fell back to sleep. I did this about two other times as well, and after finally being strong enough/awake enough to tell the nurses that I was cold, they gave me another blanket, and I, once again, fell into a deep sleep. I don't know what time it was, or how long I had been sleeping, but I finally woke up, and was able to stay awake enough to hear the nurse say, "Do you feel strong enough to go to a recovery room?" I nodded, and don't remember any of the trip back to a recovery room. I just know that it seemed to take forever for my mom and Mrs. Rios to get there. "Mom . . ." I managed to say weakly. She smiled at me, and took my hand gently. I fell back to sleep, and next thing I heard was my dad's voice in the room saying, "How long has she been asleep?" my eyes flew open and managed to focus on him. I held out my hand to him, and he took it, and squeezed it gently. I sighed heavily and pushed the button on my bed control that made me sit up. The nurse came in a while later and asked me if I wanted anything to drink and eat. I nodded because I was extremely thirsty, and so I got some Sierra Mist and Apple sauce and was able to eat a little of the apple sauce and drink the Sierra Mist.

After signing the release forms (after the drugs had worn off) I was finally allowed to leave. I was so hungry though. I requested to go to Olive Garden for dinner that night since they had their "Never Ending Pasta Bowls" for a time. We got there, and I was barely able to stay awake.

The next day, Saturday, I pretty much just rested, but we had a friend over to look at my computer. Sunday we packed up the car and headed back up to Northland. However, this isn't the end, oh no, far from it. No, this is just the beginning . . .

Broken

My last entry was basically on how I had 19 days until going back to school. Now, it is the end of the fourth week of school at Northland International University, and I am sitting at home writing this blog entry. Three days before I was supposed to be at school, I found out that I had gall stones. The day I was supposed to be at school, I met with a surgeon and found out that the soonest they would be able to see me was two weeks later. I scheduled my gall bladder removal for September 17th, and quickly packed things up, threw them in the van, and early on Saturday morning headed up to school.

The trip up seemed to take longer than it actually did, and around 3:30 in the afternoon we were pulling into the parking lot of the Founder's Center and getting out to get me registered for my classes. I ran into several of my friends and we quickly got caught up on everything that had happened over the summer.

That evening we had a game in the gym. It was like a huge game of human bingo! It was a LOT of fun. We each got a letter when we came in the door, and then sat down wherever we wanted to. So, for example, when I came in, I had N42, and my mom had G40. The game was a lot of fun. After that, we all had about twenty minutes before the singspiration commenced and so my mom and I did a few things before heading back to the gym. It was an awesome time of just praising God, and being able to sing with our whole hearts. However, during the singspiration, I started getting jabbing pains in my side where my gall bladder was. This pain continued all night, but at different pain levels. After the singspiration was over, we all walked out to camp lake and watched some professionals put off some really nice fireworks. I was standing between my mom and my "unbiological brother" Michael. We were all enjoying the fireworks and then finally the finale came, and it was absolutely beautiful! During the finale, I started getting the pains again though. This time, they were more severe though. I didn't want to worry my mom or Michael, so I didn't say anything. The pain finally got so bad that I started getting dizzy . . . I tried to lock my knees, but . . . it didn't do much good. About 3/4 of the way through the finale I completely collapsed to the ground. It happened so fast . . . one second I'm looking at the spectacular fireworks, and next second I'm staring at the ground.

I remember trying to make sense of what had just happened, and realizing several people . . . or . . . maybe it was just my mom and Michael, were calling my name. I just stayed there on the ground, and suddenly burst into tears because the pain was getting to be too much. I felt Michael's arm go around me, and pull my body away from the cold wet ground. He helped me sit up, and his arm went around me arms to keep me up. I remember squeezing my eyes shut to try to block out the pain, but the pain was still there, real as ever. I remember Michael, and someone else, I can't remember who, helping me to my feet, and then my mom and Michael putting my arms around their necks and helping me up to the road. Suddenly I vaguely heard someone saying, "Mrs. Lantz, Mrs. Lantz, here, let me take her." and then Bob Rankin (one of my other good friends) was there taking my mom's place. I can't begin to tell you how bad it hurt to have my arms around their necks though. I kept pulling my arms down from around their necks, and they kept pulling them back up. I tried telling them to let me go, but then I heard someone say something to Michael, and he said, "This is my sister, I'm not letting her go.". Nice thought, but all I wanted at that point was for him to do just that. Now, if you don't know Michael and Bob, they are both quite tall. Bob is about 6'0-6'1" and Michael is 6'3" or something like that, but either way, they are a lot taller than me. I tried to get my shirt to stay down (it was sliding up because of all of the moving) but if I let go of the guys my knees started to give way. I remember looking up at one point from looking down at the ground and trying not to trip in the dark, and I saw Mr. Calverly--one of the men that worked regularly in the kitchen standing by us saying, "I'm with the Pembine Emergency Response Team" (PERT) "Is there anything I can do to help you guys?" I remember so many different scenes from that night, but . . . my mind can't remember which order the scenes go in. I remember sitting on the back of a Gator and slumping over, wishing I would just pass out from the pain already so I wouldn't have to deal with the pain any more. Then I remember sitting on the back edge of a mini van with Bob on my left, and Michael on my right. By this time my head was spinning, and my ears were kind of blocking out all of the commotion around me, but out of all of the voices, I heard one very very distinctly. It was Michael, with his arm around my shoulders holding me up, he said, "Here Kara, lean your head against me. Relax, there you go." I don't remember much, except for hearing him say that, and feeling his hand slide from my arm to my head to make me try to relax because my body was starting to stiffen against the pain.

Finally Mrs. Whitt came with her vehicle and drove me and my mom up to the nurses station. What was rather funny (yes, I was able to realize) was that Bob had ran all the way up to the nurses station from the lake, and beat us there, while we drove. I remember Michael and Bob helping me from Mrs. Whitt's car to our van, and . . . I can't remember much, but I remember thinking that "I wish that they could come with us to the hospital" because the nurse automatically said, "Take her to Dickenson County Hospital."

I swear, the trip into Iron Mountain has NEVER taken so long as it did that night. I was made to sign some papers, had a couple wrist bands put on me, and then put in a room. They did several blood tests, and gave me some fluids. At one point the Doctor stuck a few things into the IV and when the liquid hit my veins, I felt a shooting pain go through my entire hand. I asked them what it was, and they said it was something for nausea. A few minutes later they stuck something else in, and I asked what that was because it was making me feel extremely light-headed. "Morphine" the Doctor said with a slight smile. I said, "Oh." and then looked at my mom, and for some reason started crying. The Doctor patted my hand and said, "Now, if you start seeing any pink elephants flying around the room, you tell me, because we're missing two of them!" I nodded, and then realized how ridiculous it sounded, and then realized that he must have wanted me to let him know if I started seeing things to tell him, so he will lower the dose of drugs I was on. I started giggling like a little school girl, and for a while, couldn't control myself.

We got out of the hospital around 3 in the morning and headed back to school. I slept with my mom that night in her guest room, and the next morning, neither of us felt like going to church.

The story isn't done. The story has just begun. But for right now, the story of what has happened to me in the last six weeks, has come to a temporary close.