got common sense?

"common sense" is an oxy moron, much like "short sale".
common sense is not as common as one might think. and sometimes we are choc full of common sense, but we still need 'professionals' to tell us things that we already know. like before we did the 'Financial Peace University' program (which i highly recommend to all) chris already knew what Dave Ramsey was going to tell us- don't use credit cards, save your money, don't live beyond your means (he has a billboard here in the valley that says "act your wage" which is cheesy, but hilarious, and great advice) but we didn't necessarily do these things until Mr.Ramsey told us to.

anyway, i realized this week that i lack common sense in a certain area in particular- and that is the health area. i've had a broken toe, an ear infection or two, a bunch of colds, flus, and allergic reactions, but other than that, i know little about illnesses and stuff. since i feel like your common sense barrel gets fuller with experience, my medical common sense cup does not floweth over.

monday i went to work with a strange-feeling stomach. i was drinking coffee and my stomach started to burn. i've had this feeling before. it's called an ulcer. so i stopped drinking coffee. but the pain got worse. i went to the potty, had a movement. went back to my desk. still in pain. hours go by. i go to Sprouts to get some basic groceries and some soup for my poor stomach. at this point i am nauseaus now too. not pregnant though. so stop thinking that. i go to Sprouts and all of a sudden i can't really walk any more. the pain is crippling. i pretend to be looking at a box of something organic near the ground, and i call my doctor. i tell them i am having really sharp pains and i am nauseaus, so they tell me i can come in at 3. awesome. i pick myself up off of the floor, and go to the bathroom. i have another 'movement'. similar to the one i had that morning. nothing spectacular, but 5minutes later, i feel better. embarrassingly much better. so with my tail between my legs, i call the doctor, tell them what happened and i cancel my appointment. so glad for telephones. apparently constipation can cause serious crippling pain and nausea. i didn't think i was constipated (the two movements i had par example)but apparently i was. another morsel for the common sense tank.

then yesterday i almost had a heart attack. not a real one. though i should probably teach lily what to do should i ever have one. anyhoo, yesterday i was hanging out with my boy hobes. he went down for a nap at 2:30ish, even though he had napped for about 2.5 hours in the morning. this boy loves his sleep. ipso facto i love this boy. his mom called me at about 4 to tell me she was on her way to get him. but still about 45 minutes away. no problem. so i go to wake the boy up at about 4:20. and he is sleeping facedown in his crib. and his arms are twitching. ok. so i pick him up, and he is VERY WARM. ok, he's sick. so i bring him into the living room to change his diaper. i lay him down and his eyes are open, but he is not focusing on anything, he is still 'asleep' and he is twitching A LOT. i call his mom and tell her i am pretty sure he is having a seizure. but i can't be certain, cause i have never seen anyone having a seizure before. but even though i've never seen a chicken with it's head cut off, i'm sure that if i saw one, i would know what it was. anyway, what little common sense i had before, was vacating the premises at an alarming rate.

his mom is trying not to panic, so she tells me to get in the car and start driving to her pediatrician, who is about 7 miles away from me, and that she will call him to see what he has to say about all of this. so i get the 3 kids in the car at a pretty quick, yet calm manner. i am calm for everyone except for chris, who i have called to beg him to pray for me. and hobey obviously. chris, the awesome husband that he is, left work immediately. so i am driving my kids and poor hobey and trying not to crash and run red lights. hobey's mom calls me back and tells me to go to the hospital. which is about 7 more miles away from where i was. chris had advised me to call 911, but i told him i was waiting to hear what hobey's mom wanted me to do.

we got to the hospital, hobey's mom, and her friend (so thankful for the friend for SO MANY reason!!!) were walking up as i was pulling into the pediatric emergency ward. they pulled out the still-seizing little guy and brought him in. i parked in the parking lot (common sense hadn't left the building completely!) and then the friend came out and said they wanted to ask me questions inside. so she drove off with my kids and kept them very entertained for about 20 minutes. see what i said about how great it was that she was there?) i went into the room and there were TONS of people working on hobey who was laying on the hospital bed being poked and prodded, while still seizing. i told them we had a VERY normal day. which we did!
and his mom said this was only the second time in his life that he had been sick. but of course the last time he was sick was that time he didn't wake up from his nap... man this kid is dramatic! and cannot handle a fever!

hobey is doing MUCH better today than he was yesterday. he has undergone a billion tests. and hopefully they will actually find something this time. apparently he seized for another 30-45 minutes after i left the hospital, which makes his total seizure time which brings his seizure to having lasted well over an hour. and who knows when he started seizing before i went to wake him up! did you know that a 'normal' seizure lasts 1-2 MINUTES! omg. i did not know that. i know i should have called 911. i don't know why i didn't. lack of common sense? perhaps. but that's just another coin for the common sense bank. not that i am EVER anticipating this to EVER happen again (cause i will have hobey nap on my lap from now on!!!!) but 911 is there for emergencies, and i was in the middle of an emergency, even though i was unwilling to admit it.

there are some people who just have A LOT of common sense. there are others who have common sense but need people to tell them to act on their common sense in order to look like a person who has common sense. then there are others who need to experience things, occassionally painfully so, to be able to learn things and add to their common sense pot. read my stories folks. they are here for you to add to your common sense container.