Not the Valentine's Day I Expected

Do you ever dream of a romantic Valentine's weekend with your hubby.... in a hospital emergency room with him vomiting uncontrollably? I didn't think so. But that's life, in't it? Throwing us curveballs when we least expect them.

Hubby was on the road for actual Valentine's Day, but we planned to go for a bike ride on Sunday followed by a nice brunch where we could finally get some quality together time in. As it turned out, he got appendicitis on Saturday when we were on our way back from our daughter's dance competition, and we ended up pulling off the highway into the ER where eventually he had his appendix removed.

Here's where my public service announcement comes in: If you experience vomiting that gets worse and worse, even if you've had something like food poisoning before that seems similar, it could possibly be appendicitis. This is something I did not know before this weekend. I also didn't know how fast someone could go from perfectly healthy (we ran 5 miles together on Friday afternoon) to near-death (by Saturday afternoon he was in massive amounts of pain and heading toward surgery). Since his experience, I have heard horror stories from others about how fast this kind of thing can come on and how dangerous it can be. So: abdominal pain or severe fever or severe vomiting - get thyself to a hospital or urgent care!

Also of course, he's a bit derailed from his Ironman training for a couple of weeks, but I think he's bouncing back pretty quickly for as sick as he was.  I guess I could look at the bright side - it's usually me in the emergency room. It's a bit of a relief to be the person in the support position for once.

Also, this kind of event tends to focus you on what's really important. As you hold your husband's hand at 3:00 in the morning as they prepare him for surgery, life becomes very distilled. The things that are important become very clear: your family, your love, the time you have together. I'm glad that even though he's on the road so much, we do make a priority to get out there and spend time with each other. Maybe this kind of clear thinking is the best Valentines present after all.