A Night at GMH

Last Sunday, on the way to church, Joyce made the remark that she wished we didn't need to have health insurance because it felt like we were throwing away hundreds of dollars every month for nothing. After our night at GMH (Guam Memorial Hospital) we are now thankful ($2250 the cost all paid by our medical insurance and supplemental Liebenzell Health account - thank you Lord!) that we have it. On Monday night Joyce started feeling numbness and pain on her left side. She was also feeling weak and dizzy. She had this before (about a week before which might explain why she fell off the ladder) but not this bad. We went in to see the doctor on Tuesday and he immediately wanted to check her into the hospital for a CT scan and other tests. At first, he told us that he thought she'd had a stroke. After all the tests (I got to watch the CT scan - yes she has a normal brain!) and 24 hours at GMH the determination was that this was a lupus issue. Her platelets had become too thick and were inhibiting blood flow causing the numbness and weakness. They put her on blood thinners and immediately she started feeling better. Wednesday evening they released her from the hospital and she is at home resting, but feeling much better. It was a little scary for a while but we are thankful that she came through it OK.

Joyce had not been in GMH since Missy was born in 1985. After all the time we spent in hospitals in Palau and the US in 1986-1993 it is an amazing miracle that she has never had to be checked in to the hospital on Guam until now. We had heard some horror stories about GMH but it wasn't as bad as we heard. It seems to me the nurses had too many patients to care for and we had to wait several hours for a bed to become available but the care seemed OK. The really odd thing was that the lady that Joyce shared a room with died in the night while she was there. A couple hours after I left all the bells and alarms went off. They wheeled Joyce out into the hall and the emergency teams and equipment went to work on this lady and she died around 2 AM. In the morning when I came back Joyce was in a different room. That all seemed a bit odd to us. We would appreciate your continued prayers for Joyce's health.