I am waiting for Bettina to arrive. 

In the middle of the night, I awoke coughing and have been terrified ever since.  I spent several hours getting the attack under control.  I should have gone to the hospital, but I was too scared and too embarrassed to also explain what the coughing was doing elsewhere.  I texted Pastor during morning prayer service, thinking he would pray because when I tell him about my attacks, he never really does anything but say he is sorry and sometimes prays for/with me--he does not come to the hospital, he rarely checks on me later, and he certainly hardly ever texts me back.  I had just used my epipen and had two rounds of nebs trying to stop it, so I crawled upstairs to turn on my hymns CD and try to get control.  I fell asleep finally only to wake what seemed mere moments later to pounding and yelling.

Pastor was downstairs with police in my house.  Armed men.  Again.  And he knows my fear.

My very tenuous control slipped and I started coughing again, though not so violently...for a while.  I was terrified and hid in the bathroom, using my nebulizer and trying to get them to just give me time for the drugs to work again...and the cough pills.  I wasn't dressed.  I wasn't ready.  When I do go to the hospital, I layer my clothing very specifically so that even if I have to have x-rays, I can still have the bottom most layer on beneath the hospital gown.

I do not like hospitals. They are not always safe places.  And my increasingly violent reaction to the asthma drugs I take now makes hospital staff want to give me something to "relax" me.  I might be agitated being there, but my wild shaking is a side effect.  Even when I am in my beloved Dr. G's office having a nebulizer treatment I shake.  My reaction bothers her tremendously, but she knows it is the drugs and just lets them wear off.  Giving adavant on top of the very wearying asthma treatment knocks me out.  I cannot control my limbs or keep my eyes open, which frightens me when I am around strangers.  I'd have to stay longer and I couldn't keep myself safe.

If I had someone to go with me, I would have gone today.  But I do not.  As I have said before, three different women have said they would meet me in the ER should I need to go;  none of them ever came when I called.  And I tried several times with each of them.

I got control enough to send the paramedics away and Pastor left as well.  But he told me something just before he left that made me cry, which made me lose that tenuous control again and my coughing was as violent as when it began.  For a brief while when he was there, things went gray and I couldn't stay in the moment.  I honestly do not remember him leaving; I was coughing so hard and had just used another epipen and was writhing in pain.

The violent coughing shoots up my blood pressure (the alarms always go off in the hospital), so each paroxysm made my head explode with pain and my lower back feel like it was tearing apart.  I wanted to go to the hospital then. I wanted him to say he would go with me when he asked me if he should call the paramedics back.  He didn't offer.  So, I said no.  He left because he had class to get to.  I had to concentrate on getting enough oxygen.

Before he left, I asked Pastor to take Kashi out for me since he likes dogs and Kashi likes him, but he insisted Kashi was fine and I was too terrified of the violent paroxysms and too weary to try and explain that Kashi had not been outside since the night before and would need to go outside shortly and I wouldn't be able to take him any time soon.

An hour or so later, Kashi couldn't wait and I couldn't stand the smell from the resulting mess being so nauseated myself.  Getting up to clean it caused another violent attack.  I couldn't use the epipen again, so even though my heart had been hammering for hours, I used the nebulizers again and took another coughing pill.

When Kashi asked to go out later, whining desperately, I tried to get him down the stairs.  Pastor said that Kashi walked down the stairs himself while he was there.  Kashi has not done so in about three years; I guess his worry over me overrode the weakness in his hind legs and his own fears of the stairs since he has fallen down them several times.  He is even afraid of the deck steps at night, usually only going down them if I stand near him, sometimes making me carry him.

I fell down the stairs with him and started coughing.  Another treatment and another pill.

I asked two women for help, if they could come for a while.  I was miserable and frightened and needed some help with the household.  This evening, the birds were still covered with no food and dirty water (I have to change it about four times a day).  My blood sugar skyrocketed during the morning and mid-day and I was puking, which also made my head and back hurt.  It then plummeted late afternoon since I hadn't eaten.  I asked two women and they both couldn't come.  Too busy.  I said I really needed help.  I would have thought if either couldn't come, one of them would find someone else.  But I am not worth that, I suppose.  At least that is how I feel, how it seems to me.  So I called a man, who always makes me pay a steep price for his help, to come and get me food and take care of the birds.

Several times, I called Bettina because I am so terrified.

At a hospital, I would be getting continuous nebs with some blessed oxygen and probably have solumedrol pushed even if I said I didn't want it.  I have never been given anything for the tachycardia, but perhaps the fact that my heart rate has been so high for so long would be a different story.  I know they would not let me take the pain medicine I take for cramps knowing the arthritis medicine I have been swallowing all day.  But the cramps are severe and are hard to handle even when I am not miserable and terrified.

I called Bettina crying again and again.

She emailed me a movie clip of a picture of Jesus while she sang that Love hymn in the background.  She then emailed me a new verse she wrote for me for the hymn about how Jesus comes to us:

Jesus comes through those who love us,
Showing sacrifice and grace.
Jesus comes amidst our failings,
Never will He leave our place.
Alleluia, Alleluia,
Takes our shame without a trace.


She also found a fifth verse that looks like it was supposed to go with the hymn and, I guess, would go at the end of all my new verses:

Jesus comes on clouds triumphant
When the heavens shall pass away;
Jesus comes again in glory.
Let us, then, our homage pay,
Alleluia! ever singing
Till the dawn of endless day.

I called Bettina crying again and again and again.

Because I have no one to stay with me tonight or no house where I can go to stay so I am not alone, she is driving down from Pennsylvania, even though she has a meeting tomorrow evening that she cannot miss.  She is driving down, knowing she will only be able to be here for a little over twelve hours because I am terrified and do not want to be alone.

I am nebulizing again, which has boldly crossed the no-more-than-six times a day limit.  She said she would take me to the hospital and stay there with me, but I do not know if I could talk my way out by tomorrow afternoon and I would not want her to miss her meeting because I know how very important it is to her.  She would take me to the hospital and stay with me and help me feel safe and help me only get the medicine I want (asthma drugs) and not the ones I do not (nerves drugs). She would make them listen to me, not just treat me like an hysterical, frightened woman because I cannot control my responses to the powerful drugs coursing through my system and am nervous about hospitals and being unclothed with male staff.  Yes, I would still be scared with her there, but I would go.  I would welcome the medical intervention after hours and hours and hours of trying to stop this.

But even just her coming here I will be better.  I will be less frightened and not alone.  I will have someone to pray with me and read me scripture and sing hymns to me.  Or just watch Stargate SG1 with me while I huddle in the green chair or curl up on the couch.  Or sit in the chair in my room while I try to sleep. Or even read a book or something....just present but not engaged.

I fainted twice today.
I threw up more times than I can remember.
I have nebulized 8 times.
I have used two epipens.
I have great burning pain in my leg so I think I hit a nerve or was too tense when I did so.
I have fallen down the stairs.
Every cough, sneeze, and anything that touches my head makes it throb all the more.
My back screams protest whenever I move.
My chest hurts when I breath.
My throat is raw.
I am having horrible menstrual cramps.
My heart rate has been in the 170's after the third through eighth nebulizer.
My sats are too low.
Kashi is agitated.
And I am terrified.

I am terrified of the still rather tenuous control I have over my breathing and my pounding heart and my trembling limbs...and am ashamed of my hospital fears...and am ashamed/discouraged/disheartened that I want so desperately not to be alone right now but am...meaning both that I am not really friend material to folk in this area after nearly 12 years--the sort of person you want to make an effort to help out even though she has, uhm, struggles--and that I am not allowing God to be enough...and...am hating myself for asking those two women to not be alone and being disappointed when I knew their answer would be no in the first place no matter how clearly I asked for help...and am ashamed/struggling with selfishness in that I said yes when Bettina offered to drive all this way for such a short time when she has two young children and a husband.

What does that say about what kind of person I am?  What does that say about my faith? 

I am so very terrified.  Oh, how I am waiting for Bettina to arrive.  Lord, please bring her here safely and quickly!