Hospital Retreat Continues

I have taught technology to elementary students, Kindergarten through 5th grade, at a local elementary school for the past five years. My daughter was in the 3rd grade when I started teaching. It was fun having her in my class for three years in a row. (She would say the opposite). She is now in 8th grade at the Middle School, and I have no plans to follow her up the ladder. Prior to that I worked at our children’s previous elementary school. We felt it was important at the time that I be involved with our children’s school and what better way than to work there.

I don’t have a teacher’s license and when I first accepted the job (the day before school started) five years ago, I didn’t realize that I was the ONLY adult in the classroom. I WAS the teacher. As the years went on, I began to pick up on teacher’s styles and tried to model that and think that now, I am a pretty good teacher. I had a trainer background and taught adults how to do page layout at Macmillan Publishing back in the mid to late 90s’.

This current year didn’t start out too great. I felt a lot of pressure during the first two weeks of school and my health was reacting to that stress in not a good way. Fluid began building up again and by the end of the second week of school, I was miserable. I was not an effective wife, mother, or teacher. I called my good ol’ heart failure doctor and told her that I was ballooning up again and I needed relief. You always here it said to eliminate stress for people with or without health issues, but sometimes that easier said than done. And, if you have heart failure with ascites, then it’s a recipe for feeling horrible.

The following Monday I was in her office and we were all in agreement that I needed drained (a parenthesis) again. I had just had one this past May and it had only been about three months. Guess what? I was admitted to the hospital for three days. During that time I had several tests done (hearth cauterization, Transesophageal Echocardiography (TEE), and and Echocardiogram). In addition, lots of medicine changes and blood work.

It was determined that I was ok to go home. I was 10 pounds lighter again! The doctors felt it best that I remain on a medical leave until basically the end of October to rest and allow the changes they have made in the medicine routine to stabilize.

Over my life, sometimes I feel like God’s calling me on a “retreat” with him during my stay at the hospital. Usually, I’m not that “sick” and am not hooked up to a lot of monitors or IVs and so therefore, I have time to reflect on my life and where I have failed to trust Him and be like Him in my relationships. It’s a time to think about my life, where it has been and why those events and decisions may have been made, and then to look toward the future.

So, here I am on a Thursday afternoon at home at my kitchen table planning meals, looking for coupons, getting an early start on dinner, listening to quiet music and feeling relaxed after taking a nap on the deck in the warm sun. It is nice, but I am a person who likes to “do” and be “busy” so this has settled me down a bit. I have taken time out in over the past several weeks to attend morning Mass and I am proud to say that I have exercised for 35 minutes every day for the past five days doing a cardio workout.

As far as the sodium and fluid restrictions, they are still in place. It has truly gotten a lot easier to avoid sodium in tons of meals. Even if I have a little something that may be considered bad, it’s not that bad because I am usually well within the sodium count for the day. My new favorite breakfast is a hard boiled egg and oats with brown sugar and just a little bit of milk. Today I put raisins in it too and it was delicious. Basically a 70 mg breakfast (just the egg).

So, as my “retreat” continues, I hope that God reveals all the wonderful blessings that are coming our way, if I can continue to change my own behavior and allow myself to rest and do the important things for my family and then my work life.

If things seem to be at their worst, sometimes it’s actually the best time to look toward a brighter future.