A New Family Tradition

It seems that the Nix family has come up with a new tradition for Thursday nights, visits to the emergency room! I don't recommend trying this tradition for your family, since it can be quite tiring and costly, but you do get to see a much different group of people than you ever have before! Two Thursdays ago, I was leaving a dinner at someone's house, when my toe began to burn. I realized that I had been bitten by something, but did not think much about it, until I got home and was itching from head to toe! Everywhere I scratched, hives started to break out, until I was covered in them, and my entire body was beginning to swell! I quickly downed a Benadryl, and picked up the phone to call Andy, who was walking in the door (fortunately). To put it mildly, I was freaking my freak, and looking more and more like Will Smith in 'Hitch' by the minute. I downed another Benadryl and headed for the ER. Apparently, Acute Anaphylactic Shock is not a good enough excuse to be seen in the ER before a 2 hour wait. The nurse told me that if I began to be unable to breathe, to let her know, and they would take me back. Well, I could breathe, but the wait in the ER made me wish just a teensy bit that I couldn't. There were people coming through high and drunk off their rear ends, people with 2 year olds that were not sick, and then there was me, the swollen-blimp-head, who waited patiently. When we were finally taken to the back, I was looking much better thanks to the overdose of Benadryl, but the doctor was shocked and upset that I had to wait--I hope someone got their booty chewed out for that one! So, one EpiPen and IV drug later, I was headed home with a prescription for steroids and an EpiPen. I now have to carry an EpiPen at all times, just in case another ravenous fire ant bites my toe. You read it right, folks, FIRE ANT! Andy wants me to pretend that it was some killer African wasp that got me, he thinks that sounds cooler, but "cooler" is not the story of my life! I have never even been stung by a bee, wasp, yellow jacket, etc., but a fire ant is now my undoing!

Now on to the next Thursday night, and this visit was much more serious: All of Andy's brothers and wives were hanging out watching the opening college football game of the season, when we received a phone call from Chris, Andy's dad. My mother-in-law, Sandra was having a conversation with my father-in-law at home, when she started to have trouble talking and began choking. Chris called an ambulance, and they transported her to the ER, where we all met them. Her vital signs were good, and by the time she got to the hospital, she was able to communicate and breathe with no problems. When Andy and his brothers were in the back talking with her, she had another episode of being unable to communicate. The ER did a CT scan which came back negative (no tumors, bleeding, etc.) so the doctors put her on a blood thinner to keep her from having any more of what they were calling “mini-strokes” and admitted her to the hospital. On Friday morning, she had another episode right before she had an MRI done. The MRI came back clear, the only thing on there was a small bit of calcification and plaque on some random blood vessel. The doctors did not appear concerned with this, and still do not know the cause of her episodes. She was dismissed from the hospital on Saturday morning, and will see a neurologist this Friday to see if they can figure out what is causing all of this. To add to everything, Andy's dad had sinus surgery a few weeks ago, and towards the end of last week and while Sandra was in the hospital, his nose would start to bleed and he couldn't get it to stop. He had to go to the ER Saturday morning, and my dad took him to the doctor on Saturday afternoon to have it cauterized (sp?). My parents and Eli came down this weekend, and Eli went to the UGA game with all of us and my parents stayed with Chris and Sandra to watch the game on TV. We wanted to stay with them, but Chris and Sandra wanted us to all go to the game and get away for a little while. As of this post, things are still going well, we're just up in the air about what is the cause of Sandra's episodes, so we would appreciate your prayers!

I'm going to try to post some promised pictures if Blogger will let me! Have a great week!

Here is my best picture of all The Ones from our weekend in Chattanooga

We had to wait in the boiling heat for everyone to return to the car, I made everyone look ill so that I could take a funny picture!

Annie, Shane, Keyla, and me!

Annie, Maggie, and Merriwether at the shower

The hostesses and Annie (Jesse, Whitney, Annie, me)

Keyla and her baby boy, Cal

Maggie & Merriwether "Cheese!"

Annie and I at the reunion

Andy, me, and Eli at the UGA game

Me and Eli!

Me, Alesha, and Sherry

At the game, the newest UGA mascot, UGA VII, was introduced to much hoopla...here's a close-up

Here is where he stays during the games, in his air-conditioned, iced-down dog house--Jillina, please show Mark these pictures!

Here was our view of the 'dog'-arazzi taking pictures of UGA VII--we were really far away!