To Stand Up & Live

Perhaps you stumbled across this blog to read about Marie's life and how she was dealing with the condition known as Chronic Intestinal Pseudo-Obstruction. I hope I won't be a TOTAL disappointment to you.
After years of vomitting, diarrhea, debilitating nausea, and numerous other health conditions that resulted from CIPO, Marie had her first surgery in January of 2011, at age 22. It was for a herniation, rather unrelated to her health condition. But she never recovered after her surgery. Instead she was unable to keep any food down for over a month. We were unsure of whether it was a real obstruction or her usual pseudo-obstruction, but we knew something was very wrong because, unlike her usual bouts with her illness, this wasn't getting better. In February, her doctors discovered that scar tissue from that first surgery had caused a volvulus, a twisting of her intestines. Despite the severity of this very real obstruction, the doctors insisted on treating it with a nasal-gastric (NG) tube, hoping that the volvulus would untwist itself. The did this on three separate hospital stays, always seeming to give up when it wouldn't get better, refusing to operate, and sending her home. Finally, Dr. Andrew Tang stepped in. He operated and fixed her intestines successfully. Immediately, when she woke up, she felt better, even though she had a ten inch long incision stapled shut on her abdomen.
She had fallen so behind in nutrition that she had lost about 40 pounds, so I took her to The Mayo Clinic, where she had a temporary feeding tube inserted. She was able to gain about eleven pounds, bringing her weight from 92 pounds to 103. She pressed on, but at the end of April, began to struggle again. She went into the hospital again, and was released again, just in time to go on a trip to California that we had been planning all year. We went back to our old college, saw a close friend graduate, saw numerous former classmates and professors, and went to Disneyland.
When we got home, she started having painful cramps from hypokalemia, low potassium. On Saturday, May 21st, she called a friend while I was at work, and asked to be taken to the hospital. Her entire body was seizing up, and she was unable to take in enough potassium at home. Her level had dropped from her average, but still low, 3.4 to 2.3. Even in the emergency room, with oral and intravenous potassium, it continued to drop to 1.7. She was admitted to the hospital early on Sunday morning. Her potassium was entirely corrected on Monday, May 23rd, but when she called, instead of asking for me to come pick her up and take her home, she said that she was in excruciating pain. I rushed to the hospital that morning, and took the day off of work.
You see, Marie NEVER had pain, even when she should have. Even when she had her volvulus, and should have been in terrible pain she wasn't. I called her mother and told her to hurry to Arizona because I was scared this time. Her mom was on her way when they took Marie down to an emergency CT scan. And they saw a volvulus again. Although Marie had grown terribly, terribly weak, she was encouraged that they had found it so quickly and that they were going to operate the same day. They took her down to put in a PICC line before surgery, which would take about an hour. I waved goodbye as they wheeled her out. But two hours passed and there was no sign of her.
Her doctor came in and said that her heart had stopped during the PICC line procedure and they didn't know why. They had restarted her heart and breathing, and he said that she had opened her eyes, but they had to take her immediately to surgery. So I went, shaking, to the surgery waiting room. And after about 40 minutes, her surgeon came out. With the chaplain. They took me into a small room and told me that she had died again, and they had brought her back. But then she died again, and they couldn't bring her back. The volvulus had cut off blood flow and her intestines were dead.
I saw her precious body and held her and kissed her goodbye.
The next day, I thought of this blog. "To Stand Up & Live". I had promised her, as she had, likewise, promised me, that if she died first, I would commit suicide. It was the first thing I thought of as I sat on that little hospital couch with the surgeon and the chaplain. It was all I thought of that night as I clasped her dirty pajamas and a photo of her and laid sobbing on our bed.
But Marie is with her beloved Savior now. In her perfected state, she wants what He wants, and apparently, He wants me to stand up & live.
So I will do what she did for 23 years, one month, and two days:
I will push through the misery.
I will learn to love my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength.
I will stand up & live.