Tears Of Relief

"I can do everything through him who gives me strength. And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:13,19 (NIV) On Friday January 22nd I had an appointment with my CF doctor and talked to him about what was happening to me. As my illness at this point is a continuous mystery, he does conclude it is not CF related and that being treated for high blood pressure is a great start. He sets up a phone call with my family physician to encourage her to refer me to a blood pressure specialist, who might be able to tweak the medication to fit my individual needs. More issues seem to be revealing themselves as I find myself struggling to keep my sugar levels up along with an imbalance with my cycle. My doctor wanted me back in her office Monday to check on my blood pressure to see if things were becoming more stable. Deciding that I could use a little more help with the situation she puts me on a fluid pill hoping to see a better outcome.

Tuesday morning Gary is off to work and I am heading back to what has become my favourite spot lately, the couch. Resting, resting and more resting. At this point I am starting to feel tired of resting, but there was nothing else I could do, so no point in complaining about it. Approximately 1:45 that afternoon things get a little out of hand. I am feeling very light headed, dizzy and my heart rate is going up. I wait it out for about 15 minutes and it is definitely not getting better. Finally talking myself into calling Gary at work he comes home checks my blood pressure and it is 205 over 107. An hour since these symptoms start we are in the car driving to University Hospital Emergency. That seemed like an extremely long ride and my blood pressure continued to spike encouraging my heart to race.

Extreme pressure in my head made it almost impossible for me to walk so Gary dropped me off right at the door and I plopped myself into a wheelchair. Upon registering my blood pressure was sitting at 195 over 98, so I was feeling a slight bit of relief in my head. We were told it could be awhile before I would be able to see a doctor and that was pretty obvious as the emergency waiting room was spilling out into the hallway. I decided to call my doctor and let her know we were in emergency due to a spike in my blood pressure and she steered back to the anxiety story, so I politely said okay, thank you and good bye. It was getting time for me to eat so as not to have to deal with low sugars right then. We asked the registration nurse if there would be time for us to get a bite to eat and she suggested we go get our lunch and bring it back to emergency to eat. Once in the food court we decided to eat there which gave us some time to think the situation through. Discouragement set in as we discussed how long we would be sitting waiting to see a doctor and felt no one would do anything anyway. We made up our minds to go back to emergency and tell the nurse we were just going to go home. A miracle on the horizon as we travelled back to the registration desk. Approaching with our decision made, the nurse sees us coming and asks if I am Barbara Ginther. I say yes and she proceeds to tell me there is a room for me and pulls my name out from the bottom of the pill. Wow, that was definitely the amazing power of prayer and God's hand directly at work. Of course we were surprised at that news and immediately followed the nurse to the room filled with a little more hope. Lieing on the bed my blood pressure was taken and it was 215 over 107, to which the doctor said immediate action needed to be taken to bring that pressure down. As he left the room to get the proper medication for me a sense of relief came over me and I started to cry quietly. Noticing that I was a bit emotional Gary responds to me by saying, it's okay, don't worry, everything will be okay. I replied back and said, oh these are not tears of worry, these are tears of relief.

Things started happening very fast from there. I was given a pill to help bring my pressure down and within approximately 30 minutes there was improvement.