By Vicki Scott
It is amazing how one incident can change the best laid plans.
This past week was planned for keeping grandchildren and Vacation Bible School. I had not committed to anything in VBS because all my attention was on the “grands.” The church youth leader was planning to cook preordered Boston Butts to offset the costs of youth camp this year. My husband Alan was summoned to help load blocks with grates to build long grills to hold all the meat.
Before all this came about, we traveled with our Dade-ville adult seniors to Peach Park in Clanton and had a wonderful time. We brought some peaches, peach cider, strawberry cider and muscadine cider. The muscadine cider was in a gallon jug that Alan wanted. After we paid for everything, one of the seniors said she had a bunch of the jugs that Alan liked and could have given him several. We could have saved money, but we now have a whole gallon of muscadine cider. I hope it is not as sweet as the strawberry cider. I am scared to taste the others.
Peach Park has a restaurant, too, and one plate is plenty enough for two people. Alan and I have different tastes (most of the time), so we both had a pork barbeque sandwich but I had fries as a side and he had macaroni and cheese.
After we got back home, we went to Walmart to get supplies for our “grand” adventure. We were excited, but I thought Alan was mad at me since a lot of money had been changing hands. But we were having our “grands” over!
On a more serious note, Alan woke me up on Fri-day morning at around 3 a.m., and I thought I had rolled over to his side of the bed again or was snoring. As I got out of bed, he said his ulcer was acting up and we needed to go to the emergency room. I got my purse and phone, slipped my shoes on and got my keys out of my purse. As soon as the car doors were closed, off we went to the hospital.
This has happened before, so I expected Alan to be treated and sent home. But it turned out that Alan had suffered an attack of pancreatitis. Blood tests showed a count of 1000, which when normal is 100. Alan had been hurting for the past days but on Friday it became unbearable (no wonder he looked mad). The doctor thought that Alan’s gall bladder was the culprit, but Alan still thinks it is his ulcer.
At any rate, we stayed in the hospital overnight for several tests to rule out other things. Our children were called and all events with the grandchildren were canceled. Both our children came to the hospital and checked on their daddy. My son Joseph made fun of me for not bringing anything, but my daughter Eva brought a care package with much needed things. I told her she was my new favorite child.
The doctors felt there was no sense in keeping Alan over the weekend since they only conduct the tests he needs on weekdays. I agreed, both because we really wanted to go home and what they said made sense. Alan started hurting again soon after we got home and I asked him if I needed to take him back to the ER, but he did not want to go. I messaged my prayer warriors for prayers, and Alan felt better the next day. I regretted leaving the hospital so early, but Alan made it.
At the moment, Alan is eating Jello since he has to stay on a liquid diet until his tests. He seems to be doing okay. I praise God for that. One of the doctors said that pork can trigger pancreatitis. Alan said his stomach bothered him before the barbeque sandwich, but he was told that the pork could have made it worse, even bad enough for a trip to the emergency room. My daughter Eva read somewhere that pancreatitis could mimic an ulcer. We will see. Thank you for your prayers!
Vicki Scott may be contacted at lily200383@yahoo.com.