Walking a Tightrope: Balancing Mental and Physical Health – Part 2

Our trip home from Belize was just as eventful if not more than coming. We were scheduled to leave, smack dab in the middle of a Hurricane. The rain started pouring and started washing away hope that we would be making it home. However, much to our surprise our little plane from the island was leaving on time to Belize City. We got to Belize City with lots of time and check into our West jet flight that was as well on time and ready to go. Phew dodged a bullet for sure, now just time to sit and relax, have a bite to eat, and keep reading the book I have been enjoying. Looking forward to seeing my babies!

My phone dings and I’m super nervous to check it. I look at it and phew, again, they are just telling us that everyone is checked in and they are going to leave a ½ hour early. Lucky Us!! 

As the time gets closer and we all stand by the check in counter, our phone dings again. Before I even open up my phone, I can hear moans coming from the crowd. Like we are all in a movie theatre and the main character has just been hit by a car. There is actually the feeling of shock, disbelief, fear, and sadness in the air. This time, for sure I don’t want to open my phone. I know it is not going to be good news.

Our flight was cancelled, and they were shutting the airport down in a ½ hour because of the Hurricane. West jet could not secure hotels and there were no hotels available in Belize City. There was some United flights still flying out in the next half hour so I went counter to counter, in desperation, seeing if there were any seats available.  Every flight was fully booked. There were no options and presumably no place close to Belize City to stay. My final run was to the little airline that flies to the island to see if they were still flying, at least that way we knew we could get accommodation. They weren’t flying though, so my voice squeaked out in front of the counter of workers, I don’t know what we are going to do. “Does anyone know where we could possibly stay??”  My mind had this constant image of Kevin and I in a back alley in a third world country in the rain and without being able to drink the water or find food. Our passports would be stolen, all of our items gone and we would be lucky if we actually lived.

One of the workers voice pops up with “I’ll check with my sister, she has an air b n b, I just gave it to someone else, but she may be able to get another one.”  The words were hope, the hope that we needed right now. Our wishes came true, and the place was so incredibly secure and comfortable and had a large container of bottled water. What a sense of peace that was, food we could live without if we had to for a few days but not water. However, our driver had said he would take us for food the next day. Getting the food was a funny story, as every place had been closed due to the hurricane and the police were closing down any shops still open.  We managed to find one open for twenty minutes and in game show style we had to figure out what foods we could eat, how much we needed, and what the labels actually read in Spanish. I started calling out things like “oatmeal” out loud for anyone to hear me who knew English, and I was ushered over to the oatmeal. I knew oatmeal and at least powdered milk would get us food in our bodies that should not cause any issues. We bought all the snack/packaged food, like nachos, beans, and of course, Kraft Dinner. Who would think, in a back-alley store, in Belize City, we would find Kraft dinner, but we did and yes, we knew that God was smiling down at us.

Kevin made an absolutely horrible super with the nachos on the bottom of a pan with kraft dinner on top. I honestly was happy that he cooked a meal for once but saddened that it was so incredibly awful. Our staples of food ended up in the garbage that night (well my portion did anyway!) 

We held tight for news from West jet on when our flight would be rescheduled. It was in 2 days, which overall was ok with us, we were safe. Of course, it ended up being late and we missed our connection in Toronto but by this point we are so used to just going with the flow and picking new accommodation that it hardly even makes my nervous system flinch. We could get home to Saskatchewan the next night. Kevin left his phone at the hotel, which was another cortisol rush as we were already at the airport and checked in, thankfully our shuttle driver still had enough time to drive back to the airport with it.

Awe finally on the way home to Sask, of course we had to go through Calgary first, which is in the opposite direction, we actually flew over our home airport and wondered if we would even make it out of Calgary that night, due to a terrible winter storm that had just moved in.  We did get back to Sask by 1am and had heard the highways were closed, well at least one of the main ones was but Kevin was determined we would take back country highways and grids if we had to.  He was so sure that we had to drive home that night that he risked the fear of hitting the ditch in one of his worst snow storms ever and kept very quiet about his fear as he knew at the bottom of ditch in the middle of a snowstorm would be a night of horror with a an angry wife who said “I told you not to go”.

As he drove in the near zero visibility I was watching and talking and he had said at one point he was surprised I was still so awake, I said, “well it’s funny, when you are so close to death, it kind of keeps you awake.”  We made it home by 4am. I can’t even tell you how happy I was to crawl into my own bed. I mean I love crawling into my bed every day, but this was like ice cream when you are crying or another shot of tequila when you are almost hammered.  Pure Bliss!!

I threw myself back into work, especially since I had missed extra days and immediately started planning Brant’s birthday party, presents, and planning Christmas. It was to be hosted at our house this year and I had lots to think about and lists of things that needed cleaning. In the middle of that we had a Christmas party in Regina to go to. I was so mentally exhausted I honestly have to say that I didn’t want to go. Kevin said, “that of course we are going, why wouldn’t we?” 

In the morning, I had an odd sense that something was just not feeling right to me. I walked into the kitchen to make our morning coffee like I always do and as I looked out the window and filled the pot with water, I had the oddest chilling thought. I wondered if people who died that day, knew they were going to die in the morning. Did they have a feeling? Did they sense it? Or did they have no sense at all that it was their last day on earth? I shook my head, what terrible thoughts. I told myself to focus on making coffee and getting ready and no more chilling thoughts.

On our way to Regina, down our grid road coming up to a yield sign, Kevin asked me if anyone was coming. I said “no.” I looked through the trees at the corner, but I didn’t see anything. As we approached the yield sign going 80kms hour, I turned my head one more time and screamed, “yes” as I seen a red truck on my right going probably 80 to 100 km/hr. Kevin took the ditch, and we made it back to getting up on the road and avoiding a collision.  If I had not looked twice, we would have for sure been t-boned on my and Brant’s side. If Kevin had not reacted the way he did, I wouldn’t be here still telling this story.

The whole thing was so shocking, but we were fine and both vehicles were fine, so we continued on. The party was very nice, but I had started to have stomach issues early in the evening. In fact, during that week, I had a telltale sign that bad things were happening in my tummy, as I had sulfur burps. If you don’t know what they are, they are the most disgusting thing you could imagine burping up.  It is like rotten eggs and the smell of sulfur, the taste is horrific, the smell is horrific, and nothing really seems to stop them once they start. I knew from almost 2 years ago that these preceded my ischemic colitis attacks. However, there was also a stomach bug going around at the party, so I wasn’t sure if I was starting to feel a bug coming on or if it was indeed an ischemic colitis attack that I had been able to avoid for almost 2 years now. I have a 6-point list that I got from the Mayo Clinic, my estrogen level has to be ok, I cannot be dehydrated, cannot eat rich buttery foods, cannot be stressed, must have exercised, and cannot be constipated. I had avoided the attacks it seemed for so long that I was getting complacent on the dehydration by bringing alcohol back into my diet.  Stress, what stress? Rich, buttery foods, oh you mean like New York cheesecake and all the fanciest Christmas goodies there were for supper? It is probably not hard for anyone to imagine but the denial in my head that I was going to have an attack.

I was about to fall off the tight rope.

To be continued…….