Edema of the Uvula: Case of the swollen hangy down thingy.

Life can change in the blink of an eye.  Everyone knows that phrase, many have lived that phrase.  Eye blinks can be good, more often, they are spoken of the bad.  This week, we lived it... or almost lived it.

I am back to being a stay at home mom (for another post) so this weekend, I went to my grandparent's to help out (also for another post).  I needed to run to Tulsa for some errands Monday morning, and since Kevin worked Sunday, we thought it would be a good idea for him to stay at home Monday and get some much needed rest.  My full day ended up being shorter than we all expected, so when errands were finished, I grabbed the kids and we came home.

I did my best to keep the TaylorTots awake on the drive, because I had big plans to catch a nap with them once we made it home.  My plan worked beautifully, we sang songs, played "I spy", and even endured the occasional emileigh fit :) 

I pulled in the driveway at 1:45 and gave explicit instructions to, "get your heiney's up those stairs, to your beds, and DO NOT WAKE DADDY!!!"  My spawn perfect angels managed to mind those instructions perfectly, and ten minutes later, I was entering our dark bedroom with my pillow in hand.  I tossed the pillow on the bed, and Kevin roused.  He said, "hey, what time is it?" and cleared his throat.  I mentioned something about the kids going down for a nap, and the house felt wonderfully cool and my head hit the pillow.  Kevin said something about his throat feeling sore, and got up to get a drink.  The next 30 minutes were C.R.A.Z.Y.

Kevin went to the kitchen and said, "it feels like I have something hanging in my throat..."  He went to the bathroom to look at his throat, and immediately came into the bedroom looking for his phone.  He needed a light (I was ticked ...again, another blog) his voice had considerably changed and he sort of said, "Jennifer! My hangy down thing is really swoolen!!" 

**Side note- I love my husband, he knows that that piece of tissue at the back of the throat between the tonsils is called an uvula, but he also knew that I would have looked at him like he had a third head if he used that term.. so in his time of need, he used the more technical term: hangy-down-thingy.**

I jumped out of bed, because, if you know kevin, he doesn't panic about anything, and there was complete panic in his changed voice.  I swear to god, it looked like a thumb was sticking straight out of his mouth from the back of the throat.  His uvula was literally laying on his tongue.  He was gagging and gasping.  I said, "we are going to the hospital, get dressed!!"  He said something about already doing that.  I got on the phone and called my brother who came to watch the kids (who were sleeping soundly) and off to the hospital we went.

Kevin insisted that he didn't have any trouble breathing, but the next day, retracted that statement.  It was so scary.  We got to the ER by 2:20 and he was given benadryl and prednisone to counteract the allergic reaction going on.  Kevin drank a quarter of a bottle (well, maybe not that much but a lot) of children's benadryl before we left, so he was pretty drunk.  His uvula went down, his tongue turned black and blue, and about six hours later, we came home.  Apparently, he is allergic to ACE inhibitors.  Who knew blood pressure medication could KILL YOU!??  Especially, after taking it for 18 months before Monday.

The nurses, doctors, and medics all got their jabs in, once they found out Kev was going to be okay.  However, it was so refreshing, as a wife, to see just how much my husband is loved.  Everyone came by to see how he was, and to volunteer to be the one to do the next embaressing procedure, if needed.

He slept the entire rest of the night and the next day woke up a little groggy.  We talked about how scary that was and then talked about the what if's  You know.. What If I didn't come home?  What if it would have cut off his oxygen.... godforbid anything happen to my family.  I'm so thankful he is okay... What a scary experience for us. 

Thankfully- our blink of an eye story, just ended up being a good blog post.  It served to get my blogging juices running again.  I'm not sure what I would have done if it had worked out differently.
So- to celebrate kevin living another day... we did what any good guy does: We went to McNellies and had a few brews :)