You've Got to be Kidding

What a weekend. It was Friday afternoon, I was looking forward to a nice three day weekend full of football and family. Then my stomach started hurting. I came home Friday and laid on the couch. The pain was so intense I thought I might have had a kidney stone. I was finally able to rest and took a little nap. The pain slowly got better through the night. I watched some football and finally ate some dinner, which was a delicious sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich that my very own Waffle House waitress, Katie, was nice enough to fix for me. Saturday morning it still hurt some but I was doing all right. Then all of the sudden the pain vanished, which was great except that my heart rate sky rocketed and I got dizzy, lightheaded, clammy. I stayed that way for over 30 minutes. At that point I had convinced myself that something had ruptured or that I was bleeding or some other catastrophic event was developing. So instead of getting in the car and heading to Tobey Field to tailgate like we were supposed to be doing Saturday afternoon, we got into the car and headed to the nearest emergency room. My heart rate was 130 there- normal for an adult should be about 60-90. They checked me in and soon after I began to finally calm down. I don't know if there was some physiological explanation for what happened or if I just gave myself a panic attack, but after a few hours, some lab work, and a CT scan I was released. Everything came back normal except that I was full of crap, which anyone who knows me could have probably already told you. Basically because of the surgeries I've had on my belly before they are at risk of not working as swiftly as they should.

So they gave me a stool softener and told me to stick to a soft diet. So we went by McDonald's for some french fries and headed down to the Liberty Bowl after all. I figured if I was going to die that afternoon then I might as well be doing something that I enjoy. Only I was certainly wrong about the enjoyment part of things. The Tigers did not look good. The stadium, however, looked immaculate. The video board was incredible and the field looked awesome. Our friend Jeff was nice enough to have brought Drew along ahead of us and we met them there, along with the Morris'. Somehow the Tigers managed to get a 10-7 lead midway through the 3rd quarter before the bottom fell out. There was a lot of lightning too. We knew it was bad when the brand new video board was filled by video of Dave Brown in blue jeans, who had driven in to Channel 5 on his birthday no less. The concourse filled up with people watching the rain before the drum line set up an impromptu session. Oh, these are all cell phone pictures since we left in a little bit of a hurry and didn't grab the camera. There was finally a break in the rain and we left. The players went back on the field, but it started storming again and they didn't resume play for almost 3 hours. I fell asleep not knowing the outcome after trying to keep up with the action on my phone.

Then the Chief pager goes off at about 6 AM the next morning. The thing never goes off and it has to go off this weekend of all weekends. So I roll over to dial the number, but before I can get to my dial pad my phone opens up to the Memphis game that I had up the night before when I fell asleep. Turns out they lost 20-17 to UT MARTIN???? You have got to be kidding me! Then the page turned out to be the wrong number. You have got to be kidding me! It was not a good morning. But then we went to church and things started getting a little bit better. The title of the sermon just happened to be "When We All Get to Heaven," which turned out to be exactly what I needed considering I really thought my life was ending the day before. Not only that but I got to see how many people had cared about me and prayed for me over my trip to the ER. We spent the afternoon eating lunch at Katie's grandmother with her family before going to my parents house to celebrate my dad's birthday.

So, it may not have been ideal circumstances, but in the end I got to spend a lot of time relaxing with my family, learning that people care, and learning about the place that the Lord has prepared for us beyond this life. Of course, my pager did go off at 6:30 AM again this morning. You guessed it- another wrong number. Both mornings Allie has conveniently woken up to the pager also. At least Drew was able to have a good time. He spent the night with the grandparents and got a trip to Gibson's this morning. Oh, did I mention our DirecTV went out with the storms Saturday night? Luckily we have Netflix. Who knows what's next. The day and this long weekend isn't over yet.