The Howerter Family Homepage

The gutter guys showed up today.  Hooray!  We are anxious to get the new gutters before the spring rains set in, and we want to get the outside of the house cleaned up.  There is no use cleaning up until they get the old gutters down because they are full of crud.  There is a big pile of gutter buildup right now on the patio.  Yuck.  Hopefully, they will get the job finished today, and we will be able to work on the cleanup this weekend.

Well, we bit the bullet and put a new roof on the house.  When we bought the house 4 years ago, we knew it had the original roof, and it would have to be replaced soon.  It still was not easy to pull the trigger on spending the money.  We are so blessed to have Shug as our good friend.  He took care of it all, and it got done quickly and correctly.  Our roof is at eye level when you drive in our driveway, and it does look much nicer now.  We are getting new gutters next.  John thinks they might get started on that next week.  I will be glad when it all gets completed.  We need to start doing spring cleanup in the yard.

Thursday morning was the beginning of a wild day for me.  I got up and got ready for the day, came into the kitchen and took my vitamins and 2 Alieve and 3 ibuprofen.  I had some aches in my joints, and I always take 2 Alieve for that.  I had a headache that I had had since Sunday, and I usually take 3 ibuprofen for that.  I did not think there would be a problem with taking the 2 together because I thought I had done it before.  Evidently I had not.  I fixed my breakfast and sat down at the bar to spend my hour with God.  About 15 minutes into it, my palms started itching like crazy, and I started to feel weird.  I really cannot explain how I felt other than weird.  Then my legs started itching, and I stood up to scratch the backs of my legs.  The next thing I knew I was laying on the kitchen floor, and my hip hurt.  I remember thinking to myself, “You can’t lie on the kitchen floor!”  as if I had laid down there for some reason.  I quickly got up and sat back down at the bar.  Then I really started to feel strange, so I went into the sitting room to sit down.  After I sat down, I guess my mind cleared a little because  I realized that there is no reason that I would ever lie down on the kitchen floor on purpose.  I then got up and called John.  He was already at LRS, so it took him a half hour to get home.  After calling John, my entire body was itching so badly.  I remember taking off my pants, so I could scratch the backs of my legs better.  I was dizzy and just felt awful.  At some point I must have walked into the bedroom because I found myself on the bed, and I was very cold.  I also got cramps that felt like menstrual cramps.  When John got home, he called the doctor, and they told him to take me to the Emergency Room.  I got up to go, but I said, “I can’t go.  I’m too cold.”  Needles to say, John got me up, and we headed to the ER.  As we drove, I warmed up a bit, and the itching got less.  By the time we got to the ER (a 20 minute drive), my cramps were gone.  John dropped me off at the door, and all I could think of was the comedy routine that Brian Regan does about going to the ER.  They got me right into a room and immediately hooked me up for an EKG and drew blood.  They hooked me up to the monitor thing too.  I was still very cold, and they brought me 2 of those wonderful heated blankets.  Nice!  After about an hour, I was not cold anymore, and the itching was completely gone.  The doctor came in and told me that they wanted to do another EKG and blood work in 4 hours, and after that they wanted to do a treadmill stress test.  He said I would be there for the day.  He said had I not passed out, they would probably have sent me on home, but they wanted to make sure nothing serious was wrong.  He did not say that it could be caused by the meds, but he did say that I should not take those 2 together.  We were all sure that this episode was caused by the combination of the meds because both Ryan and Jay had looked online as soon as John called them.  Anyway, I was there for the day, so I told John to go on to work.  There was no reason for him to hang out there all day when I was fine.  He was reluctant to go, but I finally talked him into it.  After he left, they came and got me and did a chest x-ray, and then back to the room.  Since I had not done my prayer time, I figured this was the perfect time.  I spent the next 2 hours lying in that bed resting and talking to God.  Around noon, Ryan, Jay and Katherine came by to see me.  They brought me McDonalds, but right before they got there the nurse for the stress test came in and told me that I could not eat or drink anything until after the test!  I told her she was mean.  Ryan was so nice.  He told me the drink was not Diet, so I would not want it.  Thanks Ryan.  And Jay ate my double cheeseburger later I think.  While they were there, Ki came in too.  She had found out from Shug that I was at the ER and that John had gone on to work.  She did not want me to be there all day by myself.  I was really touched by her thinking of me.  Thanks Ki.  The boys and Ki stayed for an hour or so.  Katherine stayed with me until about 2:30.  I was so glad that she did because the doctor came in to tell me that the treadmill stress test might not get done until 6:00 or 7:00.  He told me that I would maybe have a better chance to get it done quicker if I did the stress test where they stimulate your heart with medication instead of exercise.  That did not sound too good to me because ingesting medicine was the reason I was there.  Katherine helped me to make the decision to wait for the treadmill test.  After Kat left, I said a little prayer that it would not be too late before they took me for the test, and then I tried to take a little nap.  Within 45 minutes, they came to get me for the treadmill stress test!  Thank You Lord for that.  The test was not much fun, but I did it.  They told me that they needed to get my heart rate to 176 by walking on the treadmill.  Every 3 minutes the treadmill increased in speed and incline.  It took 13 minutes to do it, and I was getting tired.  When they reached the target, I was to leap off the treadmill, lie down on the table so they could take ultrasound pictures of my heart while it was at the target of 142.  The nurse had told me that they had 30 seconds to get the pictures.  If they did not get what they needed, they would have to do it again, but this time they would use the medicine to stimulate the heart.  I did not want that.  They were able to get what they needed, so I did not have to do it again.  After my heart slowed down again, they took me back to my room.  I was feeling a little lonely for John by now, but, since it was only 4:30, I did not think he would have even left work yet.  In a minute or two, John walked in the room!  I was so glad to see him.  A few minutes later, Kat came in.  She was on her way home from work and wanted to check on me.  She stayed until the doctor came in to tell us that all the tests had come back normal and I could go home.  Yippee!  I immediately ripped off all the leads for the heart monitor and waited for the nurse with the discharge papers.  Evidently, I should not have taken off those leads because they wanted a last reading.  Too bad.  I was sick of having those things on me all day.  Finally, they discharged me, and we were in the McDonalds drive up at 6:00.  I was hungry, and I NEEDED a Diet Coke! 

Sunday evening, as I was thanking God again for getting me through all this, I realized how completely calm I had been through all of it.  If you know me at all, you know that I am not a calm person when it comes to health issues, and I certainly don’t want to be alone when going through them.  I was never afraid or worried through all of this.  I felt completely calm.  The fact that I told John to go to work while I was in the ER is almost a miracle.  For the last 10 months I have been trying to spend an hour a day with God.  Most of the time I cannot even stay focused for more than a few minutes at a time.  I truly believed that I was pretty much failing at this, but God has definitely been working on me.  There is no other way to explain how I could have been so unlike myself in this situation other than God.  Thank You Lord for that encouragement and for letting me recognize it. 

We are doing a few updates on the house this spring.  We bought a new front door which has a full glass front.  It has brushed nickel caming and a cut glass design.  It is beautiful.  Shug and John (Shug’s foreman) put it up a couple of weeks ago, and it looks great.  It lets so much light in.  My John still needs to paint the door, but that will have to wait until it warms up.  The wrought iron black storm door is still up because we may need it when John paints the door.  If the door needs to dry in the garage over night, I thought we might need a door to keep the critters out!  I certainly don’t want any racoons and such in the house!  Once the door is painted, we will remove the storm door.  We are also getting a new roof.  Evidently the roof is the original, so it is about 15 years old.  It is not exactly what we want to spend a bunch of money on, but it is needed.  The new shingles are prettier and look more like a shake shingle pattern.  It will be money well spent I am sure.  It will also be an added selling point when we list the house.  An additional benefit is that we have a huge dumpster in our driveway right now!  Now that is living!