What a day!

Yesterday morning I awoke tired.  The day before had been glorious but long.

I was blessed to be able to go to the temple with friends, but it is about two hours away by car, so we left shortly after 6am and returned at about 3pm, just in time to shepherd our children in all of their after school and evening activities.  Our family needed to be in three different places that evening (the logistics of a large family are a bit mind-boggling!), and then I went to a gathering to celebrate the birthday of a dear friend.  I intended to come home early, but as I sat by my friend near the end to talk to her briefly, it appeared that she wanted to talk more.  So we poured our hearts out to each other regarding the big projects we are both working on right now and felt the support and love that comes from great women who become your sisters.

I got home late.  Ben and I counseled together about a few things and then we went to sleep.

So I awoke tired.  I hadn't thought there was anything on the calendar but a concert for my oldest son in the evening, but then realized that my daughter had her every-four-week allergy shots appointment in about an hour.

She was a bit sneezy that morning.  Because her sneezing seemed to increase slightly after the injection, the nurse decided to pull her in for observation.  Fifteen minutes led to an hour.  They gave her more allergy medicine and some eye drops.  Thirty minutes later they gave her something else.  Through this whole time, she felt fine.  Her sneezing had even stopped.  She and I just sat in the room, watching "Sleeping Beauty," playing little word games on her iPod, and wondering what she was missing in school.  So we were quite surprised when the nurse became concerned and told us that every fifteen minutes when she checked my daughter's blood pressure, it was lower than the time before.

Then things really picked up.  The dr. came in, and checked the blood pressure again and panicked.  She determined that my daughter was having a systemic reaction and needed an Epi-pen injection (this is a shot of steroid to prevent anaphylactic shock).  The Epi-pen is like a shot of adrenaline to the body and made my daughter shaky.  Her blood pressure didn't come up enough for the doctor to feel safe, and so she called EMS.

The paramedics got there and determined to just wait and observe, because my daughter's symptoms were all fine and her blood pressure wasn't really that low.  But the doctor felt it was serious, and so we ended up traveling via ambulance to a hospital 20 minutes away for four hours of observation.

Blessings of the day:
My daughter was amazingly resilient and calm and patient.

She turned out to be just fine.  It is difficult to say if the doctor was just being extra cautious and if the lower blood pressure was coincidental, but we did what was smart and had her monitored.

Phone service usually isn't good in that hospital, but I had a great connection where we were, which became important for a number of projects that I was supposed to be doing that day but was now unable to accomplish.  Like helping with a move for a dear friend.  And picking out and preparing desserts for the concert that evening.  And this:  We found out mid-morning that my third son was supposed to be headed out on a camp-out that evening and needed to be ready to go one hour after he got home from school.  This was a really important opportunity for him to receive training, but this was the first any of the boys had heard of it!

My daughter and I discovered that the hospital cafeteria makes great hamburgers.

My youngest son was able to go home from school with a friend, which helped since we weren't expecting to be home until dinnertime.

The hospital doctor determined that things were fine and let us go an hour earlier than expected.

Ben was planning on heading home early from work to take care of the maze of after school needs, but because we were discharged early, he was able to come and pick us up in time for us to get home, pick up my car from the clinic, and divide up the responsibilities that were now piling up.   We didn't have to find an alternate ride home for myself and my daughter.

Ben took care of the high school needs - bringing a check to my son who needed to turn it in before the deadline after school and informing another son of the campout that evening and helping him pack.

I was able to get to a different doctor's office and pick up some paperwork my oldest son needed.  The paperwork was mis-filed, but we found it.  It was incomplete, but we got it finished.

My daughter, who was really fine, went babysitting.  Her being able to fulfill that commitment was a blessing for the mother who was trying to attend her husband's graduate school awards ceremony.

I got home from retrieving the paperwork in time to put some dinner in a skillet and send off the camper.  Ben dropped him off, took the finished paperwork where it needed to go, and then went to help with moving furniture for our friends.  He took my second son with him (who was supposed to be at a piano lesson, but we just had to cancel it because we were going a little insane!)

I called to check on my youngest son and the mother said that she had to be in my neighborhood at 5:30 and would bring him home.  What a blessing!

My oldest had arrived home and began preparing for his concert.  We figured out how to tie his red bow tie correctly and I began to decorate the things he was supposed to bring to the concert in 30 minutes.  I was carrying a slightly crazed look around, and it was making him feel panicky.  So I started concentrating on deep breathing.

Suddenly my eyes got wide:  my youngest son should have been at a birthday party 20 minutes ago!  The schedule for it was odd because the boys at the party were attending a movie I was not comfortable with my son seeing, so he was going to attend the party before the movie, hang out with another boy during the movie (who was also not willing to see it), and then return to the party after the movie was finished.  As it was, he would now get home in time to miss the first part but hang out with the friend.  I called the friend's mother and she agreed to pick him up.  In the ten minutes he was at home, he wrapped his gift and looked after his terrarium.

After he left, and my oldest was out the door looking handsome and so grown up, the house was quiet.  I opened my email.  It said that I had 31 unread messages.  I closed my computer, ate some dinner, and dressed for the concert.

It was a marvelous joint-venture with the choir and the jazz band to benefit the Cure for Cancer association.  Everything went very well and the music was fantastic!

All is good here.  We feel blessed that my daughter's situation was not serious and that the craziness of the day was laughable and not desperate and scary.  What a day!

"O how great the goodness of our God!"  (2 Nephi 9:10)