It's been a few days since I updated last, so forgive me if this is kind of long. The last several days have been somewhat eventful, I must say, starting with Tuesday. Sunday I started having really bad headaches and blurred vision, so I checked my blood pressure and it was high, and it continued into Monday, so I told Michael and he said I really need to get it checked out. I started getting really scared, so Tuesday morning I called my ob-gyn doctor's office since they know about my past history with blood pressure problems while I was pregnant with Jacob. For those of you who don't know, my high BP was onset by pregnancy, and I was told that after Jacob was born, my BP would go back down soon thereafter. Well, Jacob is now 10 months old, and I still have problems with it. I went to the doctor several months ago with it, and the doctor told me to lose some weight and he put me on some BP medicine. The medicine didn't help, and after my refills ran out, I didn't have the money to go back to the doctor to be reevaluated and have my medicine increased or changed since I don't have health insurance, so I kind of ignored it. I lost weight, but that didn't help either. In case you didn't know, 120 over 80 is considered "normal" and anything HIGHER than that is considered pre-hypertensive. On average, I'd say mine has ran more like 150 over 87 and higher. One would think being the young age of 23, I'd be too young to already have these problems. High BP runs on my mom's side of the family...my mom has it, her mother has it, her mother had it, etc, etc. But they didn't develop it until their 40's, and 23 is nowhere near 40. So anyway, the nurse at my ob-gyn doctor's office told me to make an appointment with my family doctor or general practitioner, and that I didn't need to stay like that. I asked her if I needed to go to the ER, and she said not to go to the ER, but just be seen TODAY. So I made an appointment with our family doctor, the one we go to for colds and stuff. So anyway, when I got there for my appointment, the nurse took my BP and it was 158 over 98. The first thing the doctor said to me when he walked in the room was "What are you doing at your age with high blood pressure?" and I said "I was hoping you could tell me that." So after I told him about my BP history, he told me there could be several things causing it. He asked me if I had bad swelling when I was pregnant, which I did, BIG TIME BAD!! And he said when that happens, your body has larger than normal amounts of protein in your body, and he said that this could've had a lasting effect on my kidneys, and kidneys play an important role in helping regulate blood pressure. So if that's the case, I'm just stuck with high BP for the rest of my life and I'm going to have to stay on medicine from here on out. Then the doctor pointed out there were some other rare conditions that COULD be causing my high BP, one involving the heart, and the other involving the kidneys. The one involving the kidneys sounded pretty scary, but he said it is reversible. It's called something like renal arterial something...some big long name...but basically it means that the arteries around the kidneys are too narrow and there could be a blockage, which causes my kidneys to "think" that my blood pressure is too low, so the kidneys release a hormone in the body that helps raise my blood pressure. The kidneys don't "know" that my blood pressure is NORMAL...all it knows is what the blood pressure is there near my kidneys. So my kidneys are doing their job, but if there is a blockage, my kidneys are going to keep working overtime to release this hormone, which means my blood pressure is going to keep going up. He said that he is going to give me 3 months on this medicine and if it doesn't seem to help enough, he wants me to have an ultrasound of my kidneys to check for blockages, and if there are any blockages, they will have to go in and open up the arteries and put a stent in, which is like they do with a heart cath or angioplasty. Just please pray that the medicine works and that there are no problems with my kidneys. They ran an EKG Tuesday to check out my heart, which came back normal, so the heart condition has pretty much been ruled out. They also ran some blood work to check for different things, including thyroid problems. I will get the results for that the beginning of next week. Just the tests they ran Tuesday cost me $293 without insurance, so there is no telling what ultrasounds cost. Just my medicine is $33 for 30 pills. Not only that, but if I have to have more tests run and medical procedures, I could be out of commission for a few days, and I need to be able to take care of my babies. Just pray, pray, pray!!!

Now last night...lol...it's funny that I can laugh about it, because everything that could go wrong last night just about did. I had the kids and myself all ready to go when Michael got home from work so that we could leave for church early enough so that we could stop at Wendy's and eat some supper BEFORE church so that we wouldn't have to eat so late. I was wearing a brand new shirt and spilled ketchup on the front of it. Just great! I was TRYING to be soooo careful! Maybe from now on I should stash another shirt in the back of the car or something. Thankfully I was able to get most of it off, and my shirt was a dark hot pink, so it kind of blended in sort of. Then after we left Wendy's and continued on down the road, we almost rear-ended a Ford Explorer on Goodman Road. We were driving in the left-hand lane, and this Explorer was trying to merge into our lane, and we were going at a pretty good speed, and instead of the Explorer waiting for us to pass, he got over in our lane anyway, and then Michael tried to swerve into the right-hand lane to avoid the Explorer, and there was a black Mustang going literally 100 mph and it would've slammed right into us if Michael hadn't swerved back into the left-hand lane, and then he slammed on his breaks and tires were squealing. It was really scary. We made it to church, and Ms. Joy wasn't there, so I played piano. The kids did really good in church, but Ms. Jenny (the Pastor's wife) took Kaylan (her daughter) and Travis over to the nursery anyway, and Jacob stayed in church with us. So after church, this Mexican man came to the church and needed a ride, so Bro. Greg (our Pastor) was going to give him a ride, and we offered to help Ms. Jenny lock up the church and walk her back to their trailer. Well, after we locked the church and Bro. Greg was gone, Ms. Jenny realized she locked her purse in the church and her house keys were in her purse. So we waited in the fellowship hall with Ms. Jenny until Bro. Greg got back from giving the Mexican guy a ride. Then Bro. Greg came back, we talked for a few minutes, and then Bro. Greg got her purse for her so they could go to the house. So we loaded up and headed home. Well, we didn't get even a mile down Goodman Rd. before Michael's car died. We pulled over and tried and tried and tried to restart the car over and over again. He just got the car fixed Tuesday, or so we thought. So Michael called his Mom, and she was going to come pick us up, but Michael didn't want me and the kids to have to wait that long in the car on the side of the road, so he called the Hills to see if Bro. Greg could come get us and take us to the their house to wait for Michael's Mom to get there. Well, Ms. Jenny told us that Bro. Greg had gone BACK to the Mexican's house to take him some food, but she said he wouldn't be over there long. Then Jacob started crying, and Michael kept trying to restart the car and it never would start up. So then Bro. Mark (another member of our church that lives close by the church) and Bro. Greg pulled up, and the kids were screaming, so Bro. Greg told us to use his car to drive home in so we could take the kids home and so Michael's Mom wouldn't have to drive all the way out there to get us. Bro. Greg has Bro. Kenneth's (our song leader) van while he is in Africa, so he said he could use that. And then this afternoon Bro. Mark is going to bring Bro. Greg here to our house to pick up his car. It was so very nice of him to let us borrow their car. Well, it gets even better. We realized after we got almost home that Michael left his HOUSE KEY with all the other keys in the floorboard of his car, which was left stranded way back on Goodman Road, waiting for a tow truck, and we KNEW all of the doors of our house were locked. I didn't have my set of keys with me. So we pulled up to our house and Michael first tried getting in through the garage but it was locked. So he went around back to try the back door and it was left wide open!!! We NEVER leave that door open like that!! I know it was the Lord that opened that door for us...LITERALLY! We could've spent the night at Michael's parent's house, but we would've had no change of clothes and no formula or diapers for the baby. Praise the Lord!!! After we got in the house, we were laughing and Michael kept saying "We had a great night!" Which we really did. Anything and everything went wrong, but church was just so great that we didn't even care about all those things that happened to us. The devil was trying so hard to fight us, but God definitely gave us the victory!!!

My favorite quote ever, "God doesn't close a door without opening a window" is now "God doesn't allow your car to quit without leaving the back door open." LOL.