Not the best start to our trip ...

So we've figured out the way to be the first one off an airplane ... although I wouldn't recommend it. As we started our descent into San Diego, Greg very suddenly developed an excruciating headache right above his left eye. He was in more pain than I think I've ever seen him - I seriously thought he was having an aneurism and so did he. So one of the longest days of my life begins ... although I have to say the Lord and I had a quick conversation right before I completely freaked out. It went like this: "Angie, what's the worst thing that can happen?" "Well, I guess he dies and goes to heaven to dance with Jesus." "Exactly!" "But it would be horrible for me ... but then again, You would carry me through it, wouldn't You?" "Yes I would." From that point forward, I had a great sense of peace - I was still concerned, and scared of course, but I was calmer than I would have ever thought possible.

They had paramedics waiting at the gate, and they wheeled Greg up the ramp in a wheelchair with a bag of ice on his head. (You know how those ramps are uneven? There was one uneven spot the paramedic rammed so hard with the wheelchair he almost catapulted Greg right out of there! Poor guy - he just moaned.) They hooked him up to an EKG machine ... and got an abnormal reading. So they glued on 12 more leads and tried it again ... still abnormal. At this point they strongly recommended he be transported to the hospital and called an ambulance when I agreed.

As we were racing (literally) for the front door of the airport (I think this guy should have chosen a NASCAR profession), I heard someone yell "MOM!" and I turned around to see B.J. We thought he had to work all afternoon and were expecting to take a shuttle to the hotel - he decided to surprise us and I about broke him in half hugging him I was so glad to see him. [He said he was waiting and waiting for people to start coming off the plane, then he sees this pitiful guy coming off in a wheelchair and thought, "Who's the LOSER with the huge ice bag on his head?? Oh my gosh that's my DAD!!]

Anyway, once we got to the emergency room, they did another EKG. More multiple sticky things glued to his body. Also comes back abnormal. (I'm a good snoop when I need to be ... I was reading the printout as it was coming out of the machine and it said all the same stuff as the one at the airport.) Finally a doctor comes in, basically dismisses the headache as a sinus problem, and decides to send him on his way. Meanwhile Greg is still half-crazy from the pain in his head - he wanted to say to the guy, "But can't you see that icepick sticking out of my eye??" I asked the doc about the EKG's, and he said, "Oh those paramedics aren't doctors, they really don't know how to read those things. I wouldn't worry about it." O...K? I guess I'm relieved?

About a half hour later, doc #2 comes in (it's a teaching hospital, yippee) and says that his symptoms are not typical of a sinus problem that sometimes can occur on an airplane descent, and he wants to make sure he's not having a brain bleed by doing a cat scan. Hmmm. A little more worried again. (Understatement of the year.) He gets a pain shot that has little effect, except to cause him to break out in hives all over his body.

A couple hours go by. Greg passes the time by peeling all the little EKG stickers off his body and watching each spot each turn into a huge raised red hive. Doc #3 comes in, and says they've had a couple of traumas come in so they took precedence in the cat scan machine. Should be any time, she says. I ask her if she could look at his EKG's just to be sure all is ok. She says she will. We never see her again.

Another hour goes by. The cat scan finally happens. Doc #4 comes in as we are praying together, and says that the cat scan looks ok to him, but the radiologist still has to read it.

Another hour. Brandon has played with all the equipment, looked in all the drawers, turned the 1000-degree spotlight hanging from the ceiling on and off pointing in every possible direction (including directly into my face). He's officially bored but hanging in there, and I'm still very glad for his company. His girlfriend Darah brings us dinner ... awesome pizza, and very welcomed because it's now something like 7 p.m. and we haven't eaten anything except pull-and-peel licorice and peanuts since breakfast.

Doc #4 comes back. The cat scan was negative. Good news!! Except ... they are still very concerned because of the sudden onset of the pain and the fact that he still has a horrible headache that there could be a brain bleed. Apparently the cat scan rules it out 90%. The only way to know for SURE is to do a spinal tap. For those of you who knew us in 2000, you might remember when Greg was in the hospital with a virus that they were afraid was meningitis, and did a spinal tap then. It leaked, and he got the most horrible headache of his life (until today). So not surprisingly his reaction was: "I'M NOT HAVING ANY SPINAL TAP!! I'M GONNA DIE SOMETIME AND TODAY'S AS GOOD A DAY AS ANY!" The doctor explained that it was his choice, but then ran down a list of about 74 symptoms and said that if he experienced any of them during our vacation he needed to get to a hospital immediately. I was quiet ... then looked at the doctor and said, "Can you give us a minute?" He left, and I had a little talk with my dear husband that went something like this: 1) I'M not ready for you to die today. 2) It's going to be a miserable and scary vacation if we (I) am worrying about you all weekend. And the kicker: 3) What would you do if it was me? He sort of slumped over like the Gecko in that commercial does, and said, "Hold you down on the bed and make you have the spinal tap." I said, "OK then." And went and told the doctor he'd changed his mind. :)

The doctor came in as we were praying again, and said "Don't stop praying on my account." He got the kit ready (those needles are FREAKY long!) and, making conversation, asked what we were doing out here. We told him our son was doing an internship at a church called the Rock. He started laughing - turns out he not only goes there, but was going to recommend we go if we had a chance on Sunday. To make it even more of a "coincidence" he is in the application process to volunteer for Pebbles Pathway, the VERY ministry B.J. works in at the church. Suddenly we felt much more comfortable and were immediately grateful for God's grace and mercy in sending us this fellow believer to see us through to the end.

Spinal tap over, not too bad. (For me anyway.) Another hour. Comes back negative, PRAISE THE LORD!! Now we know for sure it's not a brain bleed, and the official explanation is this. Apparently, at altitude all the air goes out of your sinuses. Once the descent starts, the air floods back into them. Well, Greg seems to have filled up with snot while we were up there, and there was no way for the air to get back in, and his sinus cavity ended up pinched shut. Yow. Very very painful, but not life threatening. We were so relieved ... and then I said once again, "Could you look at his EKG before we go? Both of them were abnormal." He hadn't even known about that - he went and got it out of the file and was back in about two minutes flat. His first question was ... "Do you have a cardiologist?" "No." "Well you need to find one and get an appointment as soon as you get home." I was so tired by that time I didn't process everything very well, but evidently there is some sort of electrical problem (ultimately solved by a pacemaker if necessary) that is going on - he has no symptoms but it sounds like it was a merciful and gracious God-thing that we found out about it and that I kept bugging everyone about it. SO he has an appointment with a cardiologist next Wednesday.

We got back to the hotel at something like 11:00 San Diego time (1:00 am here) ... whew. God was amazing throughout the whole thing - other than a foot that just kept bouncing up and down of its own accord I really felt calm and peaceful the whole time. Brandon was awesome, Darah was sweet and helpful (not the way we expected to be meeting her, that's for sure!), and God sent us that amazing doc to finish out our day.

All's well that ends well, right? Once again, can we have some fun on a vacation or WHAT?????????? Let me just say that it was all good from there ... I'll start the journal of the rest of the trip tomorrow. Thanks to all who prayed while this was going on - we definitely felt them.