“I think it’s happening again.” This was my wakeup call from Ben. I was instantly awake. I knew that I was either picking him from work or meeting him at the hospital.  He was having all the symptoms of a GI bleed – just like last year: Dark stool, nausea, light headedness, and spitting up blood.  Woke the boys up, got them dressed, and headed to the ER.

There he was again in a hospital bed with IVs and tubes. But at lease he wasn’t white as a ghost. We went over all the things he had done the last couple weeks trying to figure out what could have happened.  We wondered if he had somehow reopened his last tear.  The doctor examined him and confirmed that he was bleeding internally. Now the question was how bad was it.  Last year was a really bad tear right over an artery.  He lost so much blood. It was probably one of the scariest things we’ve gone through.  And we were reminded of it again today.

I didn’t want to leave Ben at the hospital by himself, but I couldn’t keep the boys settled down so I took them home while we waited for the endoscopy.  Waiting has to be one of the Worst things in the world. At home, I just wanted to cry, but I had to be strong for the boys.  Seppe is such an empath and he was very sensitive and moody all day.  Being sad in front of him would have made him fall apart.  I think Gio just buries it inside himself, but lashes out without knowing why.  Needless to say, they were both a bit difficult today.  Not that I had a lot of patience or energy to deal with it.  For most of the day, I felt like I was just hanging on to a thread to keep it all together.

While we waited, I thought about how it was the same but different from last year.  Things weren’t that great between us leading up to last year’s incident.  I was so irritated with Ben all the time. But as soon as I got that phone call from his boss, all the frustration with him vanished.  Nothing mattered except for him being ok and coming home.  It really helped put Life back into perspective for us.  This time around, things have been great for us.  I feel so lucky to wake up next to him every morning.  Life was great…..

But Life doesn’t like to give us a break. A part of me knew something like this was going to happen. Things were already starting to go downhill, starting with the news from our dental office that we had an outstanding balance of $2000 (more on that later).  When it rains it pours for us. We’ve been trying to stay positive with the dental office situation, hoping that the matter would be cleared up with our insurance. And then this happens….

I find myself asking why??? Why can’t we just catch a break? Why this nightmare again? Even though the bleeding was stopped and he didn’t lose as much blood, it was just as terrifying. The possibility of losing him was Still there.  I’m not sure how many more times he can go through this. And that’s what scares me the most.  They can’t say exactly what caused the tear, but they think it’s most likely due to the ibuprofen he took a few days ago.  He normally doesnt take anything besides tylenol but he had an infection that had his head swollen up pretty bad and he took the ibuprofen to help relieve the pressure. But there’s no guarantee that if we do everything we’re suppose to, that this won’t happen again.  His stomach is just so weak now.  Life really sucks sometimes.