Uh.....I don't get it. I have no clue.

I don't know where to begin. Being at a loss for words is a phenomenon I never experience - until now.

In my opinion, my "Trust and Obey" post was like me telling God to "bring it on". He did. The very next day.

Since the middle of the previous week, these weird squishing sensations washed through my brain for an instant and were gone. It happened every once in a while. Kinda felt the world was going black for a second, like my heart skipped a beat, and my blood-starved brain wanted to conk out.

But it recovered as quickly as the wave came.

By Tuesday afternoon, the waves turned into a tsunami. One feeling of WRONG after another. by evening, I couldn't even crawl up the stairs of my house. My chest pounded a weird tempo, constantly changing rhythm and meter.

And it was caucus night. Heck, after all the trouble I went through, I was going to Kennedy High School and participate in that meeting thingy. Mitt needed me. But now....

Back to topic. I feigned feeling fine for my dear hubby. He sensed something wasn't quite right. I was confused, couldn't really orient myself well (or climb up the stairs to brush my teeth).

Parking is limited at Kennedy despite the fact it's a very huge high school with several thousand students. We had to park the equivalent of two blocks away. I neglected to bring my coat despite the fact the wind chill was minus 15. John and Kyle hurried to the building while Darcie stumbled on.

Noticing my absence, John turned around, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I replied through gritted teeth. (grammarians, please let me know if my quotation usage is correct in this dialog. I suck at punctuation.)

Settled in the auditorium by precinct number, I slumped low in my graffitied, gum-stained, hard-wood foldy chair. The sounds of old people complaining about the speaker system not being on high enough (it was ALL the way up), and the voices of candidate proponents melded into a swirly mesh of noise.

"You're not feeling good," John said.

"No, I'm not."

"I think we need to leave so I can take you to the ER."

"I'd rather die than go to the ER." I folded my arms and slumped further into my seat.

"Well do me a favor and at least call the Kaiser ask-a-nurse." John said balancing Kyle and his two trains on a knee.

I called. Missed the return call due to crowd noise and had to call back. Almost an hour later, and feeling more WRONG and weak I finally got through to the nurse. (I held the phone next to my ear for a loooooong time).

"You need to go to the ER." She stated, telling me which hospital to go to. The one farthest from where I live b/c it's the hospital my insurance has a deal with. Glad I wasn't going into a diabetic coma or something more serious.

Earlier in the day I feared this would happen. I balked at the thought. I argued with God. "You're kidding me, right? After all I've been through-"

"Do you trust me?"

"You don't get it! The ER costs money, they'll probably hospitalize me like they did the last time I had a Bad Prescription Drug incident. Critical care for 3 stinkin' days! I'd rather die than add more debt to my family!"

"Trust me."

So what's a girl to do when her body and brain go all bezerko? Walking to the car, I could no longer control my symptoms no matter how hard I tried. I argued with John about the whole ER thing. We called the Mom-Away-From-Home who's a nurse. In a very frank way she said, "Darcie, this can kill you. You may go into cardiac arrest. Get to the ER."

Nearly 36 hours passed before one of the many doctors with differing opinions, finally figured out the cause of my craziness. The ER doc thought it was my ADHD medication. I thought it was the sleeping stuff. I didn't take either one before going to bed. ER doc said I'd feel better by morning b/c the ADHD drug would have worn off by then.

Oh how I hoped.

Instead, I slipped into the worst psychotic experience of my life. I sobbed uncontrollably for three hours, exasperating my poor husband, keeping the entire house awake. The more he told me to quit, the harder I cried. I wanted to quit. I prayed and prayed that my brain and body would stop tormenting me so.

My body writhed, twisted and shook. I was terrified. John even more so.

By morning I felt worse. Called my psychiatrist who manages my depression meds. His nurse called back in the late afternoon asking what happened. I recounted the whole nasty ordeal through slurred speech and tsunami squishes in my brain. "Sounds like Effexor withdrawal. I'll check with the doctor, but I'm 90% sure that's what it is."

That's what it was. She asked me about how well I followed the directions the doc gave me to wean me off the stuff when he changed my medication. I told her I followed the plan with precision and perfection. She asked the exact date I stopped taking Effexor. I told her. She was silent.

In her no-nonsense way, she told me that adding up all the numbers of the days, I should be in the MIDDLE of the weaning process, not done with it. The process takes 21 days. I took 8.

Doesn't follow directions well.

It was on almost every report card through elementary school, then on projects through Jr. and Sr. high school.

Directions to me, are usually a mere suggestion of only one way to approach a task. I read them, then start doing The Thing, and never look at them again. After reading the 18 steps required to wean myself off of Effexor, How hard can this be? I'll post the directions on the refrigerator next to my home pharmacy and refer to them as needed.

Within a few days, I forgot when I started the process and forgot what step of the 18 I was on. So I guessed. Wrongly. Very wrongly. The nurse and I figured I skipped the entire middle section of The Directions. She didn't quite understand how I could mess up that badly when the directions were spelled out in plain English on my refrigerator. The physical effects of embarasment combined with the withdrawal effects of the drug were painful. "I guess I need to plot out the daily doses on a calender."

"That would be a very wise decision."

Who knew?

I'm feeling better now. Still not sure what to make of it, if anything. More money wasted on a stupid medical thing. More weight on John b/c I'm sick. More weight on Kyle whose only speed is run.

Somewhere in there, I started embracing my ordeal. I read Kristy Dyke's blog. I cried and cried (before nurse call) uncontrollably.

Kristy Dykes is my flesh and blood hero. Any person who can face terminal cancer with the hope, faith, and gratefulness deserves a super-sized reward in heaven.

I wanted to die during those 36 hours of hell. I wanted to live after reading Kristy's blog.

What is God doing?

I have no clue.