D's Anniversary

Two years ago today...we had a bad day.

Or a bad night, I should say. D came home from work feeling awful. He decided to go to bed and sleep off what seemed like a really bad flu bug. We decided to take his temperature one more time before he fell asleep. 104.5. For those of you who don't know, adults can only get to about 105 before they might suffer brain damage. I had no idea the severity of the situation until the ER doctors informed me, after a couple of hours of tests and no diagnosis, that they would be moving him to the ICU. He was dying and we didn't know why.

We later found out that pneumonia {which he had no symptoms of} had caused bacteria to get into his blood and, because he doesn't have a spleen due to a car accident years ago, it caused septicemia. Blood poisoning. If D had gone to bed, he wouldn't be here today. His "blood doctor", Dr. Bong {Yeah, I know. Funny name, great guy, even better doctor} let us know that he only had about 2 hours left when we got him to the hospital.

During this time, Miss B was only 6 months old and had never spent a night away from us. D's mom came and picked her up from the ER then helped me get her to and from daycare during the following week while D was in the hospital.

To top it all off, I was sick too. We had no idea that I was pregnant with Mr. M. I hadn't been feeling well for a couple of weeks but while D was in ICU, I had to make a mad dash to the bathroom. I chocked it up to nerves. Shoot, my husband was dying, my daughter was only 6 months old and we had nothing but his life insurance through his work. It wouldn't be enough. I sat there in the dark crying. Feeling guilty about the thoughts that were running through my head...I told him to go to bed and sleep it off. That it was just the flu. Is he going to die? I would have to sell the house. And cars. And everything else. Would family be able to help me? Where would we go? I can't take care of a baby without him. She needs a father. I need my husband.

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Two years, an emergency supply of medication and a few insurance policies later, we joke that D is a ticking time bomb. He is strong and healthy most of the time but when he has gone a few months without getting sick or injured, we start watching the calendar. The other guys at work always razz him about getting sick and being accident prone. Somehow he manages to pull a muscle or cut his hand on something. Nothing anywhere near what we went through two years ago. Things that we never would have thought twice about before. Now, we give them a lot of thought.

So, why did I share this with all of you? For a couple of reasons. First, don't take your family for granted. We seem to go through life without really appreciating what we have. We're busy and sometimes it takes all we have just to go through the motions. Slow it down and really look at what and who is in your life and how much you love them...and make sure they know it. And second, because I never understood the importance of being prepared until this happened. We knew we needed life insurance but {I'm a little embarrassed to say} we hadn't gotten around to it. Plus, we had no idea how important disability insurance would be. We were doing pretty good financially but one month off work turned into a year of stress and penny pinching to get back on track. One month doesn't seem like much but it is a snowball effect and savings accounts and credit cards end up getting used. Normally I wouldn't openly talk about all of this but I really feel that it is important that we all take a look at our situations. Would our families be okay if we were gone tomorrow? Would our spouse know where to find all of our paperwork {and what to do with it} if they needed to? Would we survive financially if one of us couldn't work for a few months? Dave Ramsey's website introduced us to the "love drawer". A place in your home {for us it's our safe} where all of our insurance policies and account numbers are organized. Wills and last wishes are there too. Anybody who needs to can open this up and understand what is in front of them. We never think that these things can happen to us. But take it from me. This stuff is important!