Good Mercy! Heaven Help Us All!

Many of you know by now about Ben's heart attack scare on Thursday. Yes, even though he is not quite 31 years old, he was able to enjoy a full day of tests and labs and IVs and discomfort at the ER after suffering from pretty terrible chest pain and difficulty breathing. Ben has a very high tolerance for pain, so when I found him whipping out the ward directory to try to track down people to give him a blessing I knew it must be pretty serious. In addition to the chest pain and the difficulty breathing, the pain was seeming to radiate up into his jaw.

We got the lecture from my dad about how if you are having heart attack symptoms you do NOT wait for anything, you go straight to the hospital and you can have a blessing there. Good advice.

I won't keep you all in suspense. Our prayers were answered and Ben has a very healthy heart. The tests showed that he may be suffering from pleurisy. You may ask what pleurisy is (or you may be a genius and already know the answer), but I did not know what pleurisy was so I consulted webmd and found:

What is pleurisy?

Pleurisy is swelling (inflammation) of the thin layers of tissue (pleura) covering the lungs and the chest wall.

The outer layer of the pleura lines the inside of the chest wall, and the inner layer covers the lungs. The tiny space between the two layers is called the pleural cavity. This cavity normally contains a small amount of lubricating fluid that allows the two layers to slide over each other when you breathe.

When the pleura becomes inflamed, the layers rub together, causing chest pain. This is known as pleuritic pain.

Pleurisy is sometimes called pleuritis.

What causes pleurisy?

In young, healthy people, an infection of the lower respiratory system by a virus or bacteria may cause pleurisy.


Thanks, WebMD!

Anyway, my morning was spent partially at the hospital, partially getting carjacked by an elderly woman, partially dealing with a termite inspector, and partially fielding phone calls from those concerned about Ben's welfare.

Carjacked by an elderly woman? Strange but true headlines starring me!

As I was exiting the hospital with Mylie, so I could hurry home for my two hour time window of the Orkin man arriving, an old lady in a wheel chair asked me where I lived. There was a hospital worker who was standing next to her who was on the phone giving directions to a cab driver. She immediately says to the woman, "Mrs. Lambert! You cannot just ask people as they walk by where they live."

"Honey, I can do whatever I like," she says. "Now, where do you live?"

I answered where I lived.

Then the old lady, apparently named Mrs. Lambert, says to me, "I live in Sterling, I need you to take me home." She gets out of the wheel chair and stands next to me. The hospital worker says, "Mrs. Lambert, you can't just ask someone to take you home. I've called the cab for you, I'm on the phone with the company and they say that the cab driver is here. He is just trying to get to this side of the building."

"I don't care!" Mrs. Lambert snaps back, "I've been waiting here for two hours for that cab and I'm not waiting here any longer. This lady is going to take me home." It begins to sink in that I am the "this lady" she plans on having take her home.

"You haven't been waiting for two hours, Mrs. Lambert. It has been forty minutes. "

"It HAS been two hours. I KNOW it has."

"Mrs. Lambert, I called you a cab as soon as I got into work and I have not been here for an hour yet."

"I'm not waiting here any more, that cab driver isn't going to get my money. This lady is taking me home and that's the end of it!"

I didn't quite know how to handle the situation. I looked at the hospital worker. She looked at me. I wondered if I was going to miss the Orkin man.

Mrs. Lambert follows me out to the parking lot and says to me, "Which one is our car?"

As she asks me, I see her cab pulling up.

"Look! Your cab really is here now," I tell her with relief.

"Oh, heavens! They had their chance! You're taking me home now."

Only because she is old and frail and her appearance reminds me of my Grandma Lee do I allow her night-gowned, floral robed, isotoner slippered self into my car. Well, because of that and because she had given me no other alternative.

Once in my car, she introduces herself as Marjorie Lambert. Despite her old and frail appearance, it turns out she is not the sweet, gentle, grandmotherly type. She is the I-will-beat-you-with-my-umbrella-you-whippersnapper type.

During the ride she won't buckle her seat belt. Although I was abiding by the speed limit she made it seem like I was driving in the Indy 500, which as a result made me nervous.

She looked around the inside of our minivan full of carseats and booster seats and asks me how many children I have. I tell her four and she is quite vocal about how that is way too many and says I better have a huge house.

I laugh and tell her we live in a townhouse and the response she mutters is, "Good mercy! Heaven help us all!" I'm not sure what she meant by that...

Then she keeps freaking out telling me she has no idea where we are. "Nothing looks familiar! I don't know where we are! I have no idea where you're taking me!"

Uhhhhh.......

I explain to her how much the area has changed in just the four years that we've lived here. (She has already told me that she has lived in Sterling for 44 years). I asked her if she came to Ashburn ever. Her response "Oh heavens no!" Well, duh, no wonder nothing looks familiar to her.

She asks me lots of personal questions like if I am planning on having more children and the size of my home and where I grew up, etc. However, when I ask her about her family she acts like I've invaded her privacy. I do glean various biographical tidbits about her such as, she has one son, no grandchildren and her husband has been dead for 16 years. She also has arthritis, asthma, and she's going blind. I suppose lonliness and miserable health might justify some of her bluntness, rudeness and blatant lack of social skills.

As our journey together goes on I also learn she hasn't driven in over ten years. This further aids in my understanding of why she has no idea where she is as I drive her home. I just can't understand how she fails to realize this as well.

The scariest moment of our drive is when she tells me to turn onto her street and that her home is the second house on the left. When I start to turn into the second house on the left she says, "Well, wait a minute! This isn't my house!"

Now in my mind it is my turn to say, "Good mercy. Heaven help us all!" For the first time it dawns on me that she might have alzheimers or dimentia and perhaps she has no clue where she lives and I begin to realize the trouble I may be in for.

I can only imagine the good laugh the hospital worker that told her to wait for the cab must be having back at the hospital with her buddies. Who knows what she put up with for those forty minutes ("two hours") before I walked past.

She tells me to keep driving down the street and confides to me that "All hell has broken loose since all the foreigners moved in" on her street. Finally, she spots her house. It is the second from the end on the right. She had just lost her bearings and was used to entering from the other side of the street. Hallelujah!

I pull into her drive way. She opens the door and exits my life.

I am thirty minutes into my Orkin termite inspection window.

When I get home I am glad to see no missed calls from Orkin.

Eventually the Orkin man arrives and gives me the low down on how much $$$ I can send their way. We saw termite swarmers coming through the front window on Sunday as we were leaving for church.

Right about now, I bet you are envying the way I am "living on the edge" with my week full of special moments such as termites and crazy ladies and heart attack scares.

The good news is that Mrs. Lambert sure taught that cab driver a lesson! Ben was not having a heart attack! Orkin will come Monday to start ridding our home of its uninvited creepy crawlies and our bank account of every last drop of fun!

Although, just when I thought we were in the clear after all that happened yesterday, this morning I discovered that our roof leaks and it has done nothing but rain all night and all day. So, to quote Mrs. Marjorie Lambert one more time, "Good mercy! Heaven help us all..."