Driving in Turkey is Adventurous: May 2007

All I can say is it was good thing we didn't have plans. Doug started feeling sick late Sunday night. A Turkish Tease relapse of sorts. Let's just say he couldn't stray too far from the bathroom. He went into work Monday morning (he's that kind of dedicated or crazy) but came home after only an hour or so. He couldn't eat anything. He took Imodium. He took Pepto. He laid on the couch most of the afternoon while the kids went to the pool with their friends.
At around three 0' clock, he decided to sit outside on the patio and read. That lasted about 5 minutes. He said he felt sick so he came and was leaning over the table when I noticed him.
"Doug, are you OK?" I asked. He answered by sitting down on the floor and rolling his eyes back in his head. That's when he tipped over into the cat dish. I ran over to him and commenced freaking out. He was pouring sweat. He seemed to be awake again, so we sat him up against the back screen door. Mistake. As I ran to the kitchen to get a wet cloth for his sweaty brow, I watched him as if in slow motion, fall backwards into the door, which was slowly opening as Doug tipped backwards. By the time I got over to him, he was laying down with his bottom half inside and his top half outside. The cats were beginning to get curious. He was sweating so much and was so much half in and half out, that I yelled for Meghann to bring me the phone. For the first time in my life I dialed 911. After the phone call, he was coherent enough to get back inside and we laid him down on the dining room floor. Shortly thereafter, the ambulance arrived with 2 EMTs, they were followed by two cops and a nice nurse who just stopped by to see if she could help. I let them do their thing which included taking Doug's blood pressure and asking him who was president of the United States.
The kids were the next room crying. I heard Meghann tell Sydney it would be OK because she had already said 5 prayers.
It was decided to get Doug on the gurney and get him wheeled out to the ambulance. Outside on the street people were beginning to gather. His boss, for one. And a couple neighbors and a gardener or two. All were told he passed out and he had been sick. He loved sharing that with the neighbors. So Doug was loaded up into the ambulance and driven to the base clinic, a mile from our house. I followed in the van.
The clinic doesn't really have an emergency room, if it would've been something more serious he would've been taken to a big hospital in Adana. As it was, they called the on-call doc away from his burger burn to come and pronounce Doug had a sick stomach and he shouldn't have been sitting outside in the heat. They gave him an EKG and he was fine. He wasn't even severely dehydrated, no IV. His boss came to check on him and told him to stay home the next day. The First Sergeant came to check on him and promised not to make fun of him for landing in the cat dish until he was feeling much better.
After he felt well enough he walked out to the van (he wasn't wearing shoes) and we drove home. I called the kids who had been waiting at friends' and Sydney came running home and took good care of him the rest of the night. Meghann sauntered home a while later and didn't appear too ruffled. Doug started taking his medicine to help his tummy and I got him plenty of Gatorade. We watched a movie and then he tried to go the bathroom and almost passed out again.
This time I called a couple members of our church and they came over and said a special prayer and Doug spent a pretty peaceful night after that. He stayed home most of the day on Tuesday. He went in around 2:30 and stayed until 7:30 when I called him and told to get home!
He is at work now and says he is feeling fine.
The moral of the story- if you're going to faint, wear shoes? I don't have a moral. Doug is doing fine and I thank him for giving me such great blogging material.