Home at last!

Home has always been a wonderful, safe place, but it never looked as good to me as it did on Friday night after spending a week in the hospital. I was so happy to get home that when I saw the big, lazy trees in the yard and my cats sitting on the porch rail, tears came to my eyes. Home!

I had a very tough week. After a visit to the local emergency room on Sunday evening, I had to follow-up with my doctor on Monday morning. As soon as she listened to my asthmatic lungs, she immediately put me in the hospital. Come to find out, I was suffering from what she called the worst case of asthma and bronchitis she'd ever seen and a partially collapsed lung. I knew I was having trouble breathing, but I hadn't been prepared to hear all that! She immediately started me on antibiotics, steroids, and breathing treatments. I thought I might be in the hospital overnight until my lungs sounded clearer, but imagine how distraught I was when, on Friday morning, I was STILL in the hospital with wheezy lungs and horrible coughing.

She did let me go home on Friday evening with specific instructions and a case of medications to continue my treatment. We had a full house of guests for the weekend, so B&B duty was calling, but impossible for me. Thank goodness my mother had mercy on Michael and me and came down to help us. We don't know what we would have done without her. She cleaned guest rooms, cooked breakfast, and fed animals! When Michael came down sick, as well, she cooked dinner for us and kept us going.

I've been home for four days now, and I've brought home with me coughing fits and bruised arms from the iv's and blood tests they took. But I'd much rather be home, as comfortable as is possible, with my husband, my mom and our animals than in the hospital. It seemed impossible to get well in the hospital. I instantly felt better upon returning home. Restorative. Home is restorative.

It's been a week and a half since the illness overtook me. I can't believe it's been that long, and it feels as though I've missed entire days of my life (probably spent sleeping through them at the hospital). I've got a list of projects to focus on the rest of the week while I'm home: clean out the kitchen junk drawer, get out my Easter decorations, add new pictures to our photo album -- all things that I can do that won't cause my asthma to flare up or take so much energy that it sends me into asthmatic convulsions. It might be nice to have an organized kitchen junk drawer.