Interlude: And Then Ren Had a Stroke (Actually, "Stroke-like Symptoms of Undefined Origin")

I think from the title, you may know where this is headed. Our final moving preparations ran into a slight snag when Ren woke up Wednesday with a numb and slightly lopsided face. Now, if he hadn't been complaining the previous couple of days about feeling light-headed, and if he hadn't complained of a severe headache the night before, I probably would have just ignored it. We've been married long enough that I know he won't go to the doctor unless he thinks he's dying (or experiencing the symptoms of a detached retina, which actually kind of freaked him out). And he seemed coherent enough--at least as coherent as one can be in the midst of a major move with small children.

But then my dad called and pointed out that the symptoms were pretty consistent with someone having a stroke. When he put it that way, I kind of saw his point. After all, Ren IS a male of a certain age and he DOES have a history of high blood pressure. So, I convinced him to go to Prompt Care. In an ideal world, the Prompt Care doctor would've said it was nothing. But, he couldn't reach that conclusion based on he evidence we presented him. So, he sent us to the ER for a brain scan.

I hate the ER in our town. Don't get me wrong. The people are nice enough. But, after several visits, I'm convinced that the strategy is to keep you there long enough so that you actually forget why you are there because all your symptoms have no choice but to subside. Ren spent five hours in the ER waiting for an MRI and the results. It didn't help that a storm hit just as he finally got into the cylinder, causing a power outage that delayed the process an additional thirty minutes. It also didn't help that the first two hours of our time at the ER included our children since I couldn't find a sitter.

In the end, the kids got to hang out with two of their favorite people and Ren got a day off from stressing about the move. The tests were all inconclusive, other than to show that he did not seem to be experiencing an emergency. The next morning, he woke up with swelling on the opposite side of his face, and that's when I realized just how much moving stress stinks. We've moved so many times that Ren actually had an allergic reaction to it.

So, I gave him some Benadryl. And, after a day of Benadryl fog, he woke up this morning feeling just fine.