New Beginnings

So, I'm trying again...this time the blog is for me. This time.

Everyone who will read this post will know me, I'm sure. I very, very seriously doubt that anyone other than friends will be reading this first post and I figure that a lot of this blog will be updating people as to Bobby's and my life over the next year or so. So...here goes.

The Wedding.

I woke up the day of the wedding feeling so awful. My stomach had been messing with me since Christmas and (sorry for the over-share, guys) I'd had a tiny uti that was sort of a follow-up to one I'd had a few weeks before. At this point, I'm going to give this little disclaimer: I will not ever be sharing health information on this blog ever, ever again. I do not share health information in general. In fact, I would have seriously preferred that this entire story was known only by me, Bobby and my immediate family, but it is not. Because people decided that everyone at the wedding needed to know, it's all common knowledge at this point, so I'm okay with posting this particular story. Never again, however. I promise. I don't like sharing about my health. It does, however, pretty much govern everything in this story...so I have to share a little.

So, I hadn't been taking fantastic care of myself; I'd been planning and executing a large-ish wedding with lots of details and everyone coming to me asking "What should we do about this? Come show us. What about this tiny detail that no one cares about or will notice? Please, let's debate the merits of doing it this way or that way for an hour. Take part, we know you have nothing else that might be a little more important going on right now."

By the time Wedding Day rolled around...my body had enough. It retaliated. I involuntarily woke up at 5:30, rolled around in bed for awhile and went back to sleep. I woke back up at around 6:45 and took a shower. Directly after which I realized that I was (sorry for a really, really big overshare) peeing straight blood.

9 Hours to Wedding

I almost passed out from shock, nothing like that had ever happened to me and it really scared me. I'd heard a horror story or two about someone with similar symptoms...they were on an iv drip in the hospital for two days. Suddenly my wedding date (01.01.10 won't be happening for another hundred years), my dream wedding, my honeymoon...it was all slipping away. Months of work, all to have it come down to this? I sat there for 20 minutes, completely unsure of what to do. My brain beat my heart (obviously) and I told my mom, told her I was going to the hospital, gave her the marching orders on how to finish everything, gave my sister some OTHER marching orders, called Bobby and drove myself to the ER.

8 hours to Wedding.

It was pouring. It rained all night and was still going strong. The wind was rough, at some points shaking the car so hard that I worried I'd hydroplane. As I made my way down SR-46 I completely lost it. I'd kept it pretty well together that morning (not so much luck 2 nights before when I'd had a complete meltdown), but other than that? I'd managed myself pretty well. Not so that morning, my friends. I walked into the ER at 8:30 a.m. and managed to be helped immediately by a triage nurse. --At this point I'm taking a break in the story to thank the amazing staff at Central Florida Regional Hospital in Sanford. You'll see why in a few.-- She took my blood pressure and noticed that it was "really high". So high, in fact, that she thought it was a fluke and took it again to make sure that the machine wasn't malfunctioning.

No, it was not. My BP was ridiculously high and so she asked me WHY I was so stressed.

"Well", I answered, "what time is it?"

"Around 8:30"

"Then I'm getting married in 7 1/2 hours and currently I'm in a hospital, I don't know what's wrong with me, it's raining and windy and the wedding is outside and I don't know what I'm going to do about everything."

I think I found the most caring nurse in the entire world. She wrote that I was getting married at 4 p.m. ON MY CHART so that everyone would make me a priority. I was moved immediately to a room, peed in a cup (still blood) and then Bobby showed up.

I don't care what anyone says, it's not bad luck for the groom to see the bridge before the wedding if she's got wet hair on top of her head, no makeup on and is lying on a hospital bed waiting for test results. No...in that particular scenario I'm pretty sure it's good luck.

7 Hours to Wedding

The test results took forever to come back (I thought it was a simple test), but just from the visual of the "specimen", they knew I had a pretty bad bladder infection. Apparently I didn't get over my first uti...it had been "quietly" worsening as it moved into my bladder and was dangerously close to going into my kidneys (which would have been pretty bad). My Physician's Assistant was pretty rude to Bobby, who was just trying to make sure they didn't rush TOO much because of the wedding, but she did move us through the system pretty quickly. She got my my prescriptions (which, when they found out we were going on a cruise to the Caribbean, she made sure were ones that didn't affect you if you had sun exposure, bless her heart) and the nurse brought in the first dose of antibiotics, which I received through a very, very painful shot to my way lower back (aka my ass). How painful? I couldn't walk normally for over 24 hours after I got it. But! They cleared us to leave.

4-6 Hours to Wedding

I drive to the pharmacy, get my pills and then book it home, where my mom and family have done EVERYTHING for me. I straighten my hair, apply the first (of many) coat of makeup and my dad's side of the family decides that now would be a good time to come over for a chat. While my mother and I disagree, we talk, we relax, they leave after an hour, we flip out. And just like that? It's time to get ready for the wedding and the photographers are about to show up and my dress needs to be re-pressed and there's no place in my house to take photos and we are STRESSED! so we do what any normal person would do: call my grandmother and ask to use her place. That's what we did for the entire wedding, after all.

2 Hours to Wedding

We pack up the car with the bouquets and boutonnieres (hand-made by my momma, might I add) and drive down to my grandparents', meet the photographer, get ready (finally) and...wait. Because we'd had to change the ceremony location we were rounding up guests from all over the city (awesome...not) and so we had to wait. And wait. And wait. And finally? It all started. Thirty minutes late (which really ticks me off; I hate it when things start late, especially things that I plan).

The rest of the night is a blur of people and laughing and fun and dancing and getting really, really sick from my pain meds and having to be quietly rushed out the door when no one was looking and driving to our hotel in Orlando shaking in my Gator snuggie I felt so awful and using the office bathroom in the dark (because I couldn't find a light switch) before we'd even checked in at the Courtyard at Lake Lucerne (which is, like, the nicest B&B in Orlando) and watching the Gator game while my husband took care of me.

We woke up the next morning and I felt like a different person. We were able to make it to the boat, I actually ate and we had an amazing week on our cruise. But that, friends? Is a different post. And so, despite rain, wind, a trip to the ER, moving the entire wedding into the reception area, serious temperature drops and more drama than I care to think about, the wedding happened. And it was amazing.