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Mountain Lions and Grizzly Bears

I have told you I am a worrier.  It's what I do.  It's how I breathe.  I worry.  I worry about everything.  But, there are people I worry about more than others.  That would be my family.  If I have a reason to worry about them, which is usually, I worry about them.

I worry about silly things that have to do with them.  At one point in my life, I laid in bed, wide awake, couldn't go back to sleep, because I started to worry a mountain lion would go into Crystal's backyard and do harm to Zachary, who was but a mere toddler.  I have been teased about my unreasonable worry since then.

Due to that one worry, I have decided to call anything I worry about as a mountain lion.  Well, I was reminded that a grizzly bear really was a possible threat to my son about ten years ago, so in honor of Grizzly Jim (my son), I am now adding the title of grizzly bears if I am worrying about him.  When I am worrying for him, it will be a grizzly bear worry.

I have three beautiful children that I have given birth to.  They are grown up, they are adults, they are my babies.  Doesn't matter how old they are, they are my babies.  They have babies of their own, they are my babies.

I have one baby, who from the time she was three-years-old, has pretty much struggled with life.  She is continually and consistently being pushed and shoved by life.  When she was three, she was diagnosed with leukemia.  When she was eight, she relapsed - and that time was much worse than the time before.  She's broken bones, had organs removed.  When she was 15-years-old, she started to hemorrhage so badly she ended up in a hospital hundreds of miles away. She has female issues that would make most woman crumble. She's had kidney stones.  Diabetes, you say, well of course.

Was all of that enough?  No.  She then was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and lives in daily pain.  Was that enough?  No.  About two years ago, they did an MRI on her brain and found she had an Arachnoid Cyst in her brain.  Pretty benign and common, but,  just one more thing.  About two weeks ago, she got a headache.  This is a headache that will not go away.  So - after one useless visit to the urgent care facility and no relief, she went to her doctor's associate.  He wanted her to have another MRI.  They tried Wednesday, but she was too claustrophobic still, even with the Valium.  They got her in today at LDS Hospital and the plan was to sedate her.

When they took her back, I told her to be good or she would be beaten.  She had been gone for about 35 minutes.  Long enough for me to go get a sandwich and go back to where they would return her when she was done. So about five to ten minutes after returning to my original spot, I was just sitting there when the loud speaker put out an announcement, "Rapid response team to MRI North 2".  I knew instantly.  I knew it was her.  I started to have difficulty breathing and just sat.  Then again, "Rapid response team to MRI North 2".  I could just feel my blood draining from me.  Again, "Rapid response team to MRI North 2".  I finally, shaking, walked around the corner where the nurse's station was, looked at her, started to sob and said "is there a reason I should be scared to death?"  She just looked at me for a second, then rushed to me.  She told me she had sent the other nurse there to see what was going on and if it was her.  I knew it was her.  She tried to reassure me and tell me that we didn't know it was her, but she would let me know.  I heard her pick up the phone and call and ask someone, trying not to give any indication. I continued to sob.  I didn't know what was going on with my baby.  Were they doing CPR on her?  Were they intubating her?  What were they doing to my baby?  I heard the phone ring, "her blood sugar was 107 when she went up".  That clinched it, I knew it.  They checked her blood.before she went, it was 107.

Apparently, they sedated her, though not really awake, she kept moving.  They gave her some more sedation medication.  She stopped moving.  She stopped breathing.  They injected another medication, a derivative of Narcan.  They had to bring her back.  Working in the field I do, I know what Narcan is.  They give it to heroin overdosers who are in full cardiac arrest. This was some horrible crap that she went through.  They were unable to do the MRI.

She's ok.  She's home now.  She's ok.  But, that was one of the most frightening moments in my entire life.  The mountain lion almost won.  But, she pushed back and came back full force.

There is no fear like the fear you have not knowing if your child is all right.  There is no relief like the relief you get when you find out they are all right.

Kiss my ass mountain lions and grizzly bears.

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