This picture is Joyce 2 years after the story below.
Our day of fire began on October 19 0f 2017. Joyce woke up and had a powerful headache and said her vision made things look as if she was seeing through a dirty screen door. We called two eye doctors but could not get a quick appointment. The second doctor recommended we go to the emergency room so they could check her out. The doctor there checked her and said she probably had a stroke and they were going to do an MRI. The first one they did was all smeared because Joyce could not hold her head still. They did a second one and that one did not show a clear result, so they did a third scan. The scans took several hours for the scans and for doctors to get back and read the results. The attendants finally rolled her back into the emergency room just before 4 pm. Within 5 minutes Joyce let out a blood-curgling screem and then flatlined, as dead as anyone could be. Joyce's room happened to be within 10 feet of doctors, nurses and technicians. They burst into the room enmass, filling it shoulder to shoulder with them and their equipment. One nurse told me to leave. My reply was a simple NO! The crew did their magic and Joyce was back to a heartbeat and able to breathe, but was unconsciousIt turned out Joyce had a golf-ball sized tumor in the center of her brain that expanded until it burst.The emergency room doctor asked me if we had any children and I said that we had a daughter. The doctor said that I should call her and get her here to see her mother because Joyce would not live through the night. A young preacher came into the room after the emergency crew left. I'm sure he was in his twenties, but he looked like a high school student. He asked me if we could pray together for Joyce. I told him that I thought it was a little bit late for that, but I also said it would be okay to do so. Afterward I headed for our daughter's home to bring her to the hospital. She was too upset to drive. We were less than 5 minutes away when I received a phone call from the hospital. A nurse said there was no need to come back because they were loading Joyce onto a helicopter and sending her to Saint Louis for surgery there. We turned the car around and went to get some clothes for us to have in Saint Louis for what could possibly be an extended trip. Driving up there I had a 3.5 hour trip and all I could wonder about was, am I driving 200 miles to identify a corpse?
By Christmas 2017 Joyce had been in hospitals in and out of ICU areas since the middle of October. She was in Saint Louis for 2.5 weeks with me and our daughter Annie living in a hotel nearby. After that she was transferred to Springfield. I was home then and spent most of my time in the car back and forth and in the hospital. There were several times in November that the doctors shook their heads and said she likely would not make it. One particular morning I asked one of her doctors how she was doing? He shook his head and said that if she makes it through the next four days she would likely survive. Those were the longest four days of my life. November dragged on seemingly forever. Christmas was drawing near and I didn't even have a tree up in the living room because I began to believe she would never come home. Finally on Christmas Eve I thought she was going to make it through her tribulation and come home. I wasn't sure what I would have to deal with and Lord knows it was as bad as I feared for about two weeks into January of 2018. But on the eve of Christmas I decided she would come home, so I put up a tree for her when the great day would happen. We usually have a tree up before Thanksgiving, but I must say putting the tree up on Christmas Eve was a very happy evening for me.
In case you may be wondering, Joyce is fine. In her own words, "the bitch is back." Those are her words, not mine. I am happy that I have her with me every day.
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