Las Vegas Day 1 – Things Don’t Go As Planned

So several months ago I decided to plan a vacation for the end of May. The original plan was to fly to Lakeland, FL and hang out with my buddy Shane and do a little sight seeing in the area (Tampa and Orlando).

Then I decided, heck, you are missing out on so much of the country why not just drive down there, take a little extra time? Stop see some folks in Nashville, see some folks in Atlanta, maybe even drive down to the Florida Keys?

So Friday the 13th rolls around and I have one of those last minute changes of mind. I don’t really want to drive down to Florida. The whole reason for me going down has been put off for at least another month, let’s just do something else.

I had considered going to Washington D.C., but ugh, who wants to be in D.C. on Memorial Day? I know, we’ll go back to Vegas.

Yeah, but we had wanted to go back in December of this year… So we went back and forth and finally by Sunday we had decided to just go spend a week in Vegas.

So I jumped on the phone and the internet and made all of our plans. I booked shows, a hotel room, plane tickets, dinner plans, the whole week was planned wall to wall and all at the last minute.

I was pretty proud of myself.

The big weekend came.

We packed, we stayed up late, we took the boys out to see Star Wars III.

We forgot to eat.

We forgot to sleep.

We arrived at Fort Wayne International Airport at around 5:30 am. Our flight headed out at 7:30.

Somewhere around 9:00 we arrived at Chicago O’Hare International. Our flight for Vegas left in 30 minutes from the other side of the airport.

9:30ish we left for Vegas crammed into a packed plan with a large woman blocking our only exit.

An oatmeal bar was offered as nourishment.

At around 11:00 am Vegas time (or 1:00 Indiana time) we arrived at the airport. The landing wasn’t smooth to say the least. We made our way through the airport, down stairs, across trams to the luggage carousel. Thankfully our driver was there to pick us up.

So while he and I fought to get our bags, I sent Michelle into the MGM Grand airport check in to sign in to our room.

We had just snagged our 100 pounds of clothes when I heard someone yell out.

Michelle had collapsed on the floor and started to have a seizure.

I dropped everything and ran across to the entrance way and held Michelle while the seizure continued for the next 2 or 3 minutes (I have no idea how long it lasted, it seemed to go on forever).

It hard for me to write about this and how I felt sitting there looking into a face that looked like my wife but was devoid of anything that resembled her; her eyes were open, but they were empty.

I keep talking to her, letting her know that I was there.

As she started to come around you could see the change on her face and she didn’t know who I was, where she was at as the convulsions continued. When everything finally stopped she looked around and said she was okay.

She didn’t remember falling or having a seizure. When the EMTs got there she was still very confused. She knew who I was, but we weren’t married yet, and she had never been to Vegas before. She still lived in Michigan and had no idea what day it was.

Her memory loss continued for the next 20 minutes or so and it wasn’t we were half way to the hospital in the ambulance did she finally start to recall things.

We spent the next 7 hours in the hospital (Sunrise Hospital). They ran blood tests, CT scans and who knows what else. Everything came back negative.

They have no idea why she had the seizure (she has never had one before). They believe that it was possibly caused by sleep deprivation, low blood sugar, and motion sickness; but no clue as to if they are even right or if it will happen again.

So they put her on anti-seizure meds and sent us home.

Now I’m on edge.

Every moment she is out of my sight I worry and I wonder if this will happen again. There wasn’t any warning last time, what happens next time? So I’m very afraid. I keep that entire episode in my mind and every time I close my eyes I can still see it.

She left the hospital with a bruised tongue (she bit it pretty good), a golf ball sized lump on her head and a body that won’t hardly move. Things didn’t go as planned.

But even in dark times God works in others around us. The female EMT was just awesome and was really there for Michelle. The nurse at the hospital took great care of her, the doctor was every encouraging and had a wonderful bedside manner. MGM Grand upgraded our room to a suite for free, helped cancel our dinner reservations for that evening and got us new show tickets for a different night, no less than 6 different people from the hotel called to check on her, they opened their flower shop to make sure I could order roses to have them waiting for her in our room, and when we couldn’t get a taxi after two hours of calling, they sent their car out to pick us up.

So I have no idea what is going to happen (or even what happened for that matter), but to quote the doctor, “well, if you’re going to have a seizure (not that I recommend that), this is the kind you want to have.”

So for now, I just thank God that she is alright and that it didn’t happen in a worse place or have even a worse outcome.