You Might Be a Military Spouse and Mommy If....

To put my own spin on Jeff Foxworthy's famed phrase, "You Might Be a Military Spouse and Mommy if...you've ever driven yourself to the Emergency Room because your eyes are swelling shut and you refuse to have I.V. drugs because they take too long and would upset your husbands school schedule and your daughter's care.

Yep, you guessed it. My eyes continued to swell and since I have an allergy to latex, which makes it hard for me to breathe on occasion during a reaction, I decided that I needed to go to the Emergency Room. Here's where the real fun begins. I realized at 2:00 a.m. that my eyes weren't getting any better and that slowly they were getting worse. The next step might be breathing issues if I continued to stay at home and let it play out. So, I woke my husband up and told him that I was driving myself to the Emergency Room. No, don't freak out...it was my decision for him to stay behind and take care of our daughter. The hospital here in Monterey didn't permit any children under the age of 18 in the hospital due to the threat of the H1N1 virus so someone had to stay home with her. Besides, it was a quick 15 minute drive at 2am.

Once I got to the Emergency Room they quickly ushered me back to a room where I was examined carefully by a nurse while I waited for the doctor to come in. While I was waiting for the doctor the nurse wanted to start an I.V. on me. This is about a joke. I'm a hard stick and so those don't go in unless I or the doctor truly think that it's necessary. I politely asked him to hold off until the doctor came in, which he did with no problems once he saw my crapped out veins. Folks it's not hard to figure out, 34 surgeries plus other minor procedures = crappy veins. I've actually made nurses cry because they've had to stick me so many times.

Anyway, back to the story. When the doctor came into the room a few minutes later, he seemed to figure out what was going on. After examining me, it seemed to him that I was having an allergic reaction to something they used during surgery, but whatever that thing was would remain a mystery. He told me that he wanted them to start an I.V. so that he could give me a few different antihistamines to shock my system back to normal so to speak. During his examination he did figure something out that baffled me, but also gave me some relief. It seems that the annoying echo that I was hearing in my right ear after surgery was because my inner ear was swollen due to this reaction. He assured me that the meds would work and that the echo would disappear once the swelling went down.

Before he had the nurse start my I.V. he asked who would be taking me home. When I told him that I would be taking myself home, he looked at me funny and said, "well I hope that you have 6 hours to wait here AFTER the medicine goes in because that's how long you have to wait here to make sure that you're okay to drive." By this time it was 3 am and my husbands first class started at 8am and Caylee had to be at school by 8:30. Nope, I didn't have time for this. So I asked him what my other options were. He told me that he could prescribe medications in pill form for me to take, and that I could pick them up at the pharmacy and be on my way within the hour. Ding Ding Ding!!!! I'll take curtain #2.

On the way to the pharmacy, I contemplated how I had come to this decision. I had made the decision without any real thought at all to prolong my allergic reaction so that I could be home in time for my husband to go to school and for me to take my daughter to school as well. Not to make myself sound like a martyr or anything because I'm no where near that. I just think it's funny how the needs of military spouses and parents, some are one in the same go unnoticed. Then I realized that not only does my husband have to put his duties first, so do I. It was quite an eye opening experience for me.

That decision has played in the back of my mind each time that I have had to make a decision that will affect my family. It weighs heavy on my decisions and my train of thought. I think that when we marry our active duty spouses and become parents, we sign somewhat of a silent contract that states that we'll always put the needs of our spouses and children above our own. So, in closing, "You Might Be a Military Spouse and Mommy If" you look like someone punched you in the face and you ask yourself, Will my husband still be able to make it to class if I do this?"