How a Health Scare Changed the Way We Live

It’s astonishing to me to see that I haven’t updated this blog since November of 2022. That’s four years. After a lot of encouragement (thank you, Deanna), some prayers, and a bit of a tumultuous 2025, I’ve decided to *slowly* begin writing again. Don’t ask me what the plan is for this blog. I’m not quite there yet. What I do know is that I want to share my 2025 and how two major health scares put us on the path to actually living the life the dreamed of but were too scared to live.

June 2025

We were about six months clear of a major personal setback (story for another time) and things were starting to finally setting back down and look like our normal lives. Preston was happy in his job. I was keeping busy with volunteer work and getting into running and lifting. Back in April, Preston had gone to the doctor with high blood pressure. Instead of pushing him to lower it through natural means like diet and movement, she immediately put him on medication. I wasn’t a fan but trusted her medical advice. Fast forward to early June and he began to not feel well. I remember one incident at Church where he said he went momentarily deaf and couldn’t hear the choir. He never let me know how badly he actually did feel and made sure I stayed for the Eucharist because he knows how important it is to me. All he told me was that the wasn’t feeling well- he never let on how badly he actually was. A couple days later he truly couldn’t shake the dizziness and light headedness. He checked his blood pressure and saw it was very low. We made an appointment for his PCP to see him. When she did, she brushed off what he was telling her and suggested a check up in a few weeks. I pushed because I knew something wasn’t right. To placate me, she said we could go to the ER.

By the time we got there he was fading fast. We made it to the triage room before he finally fainted and started shaking. It was the scariest moment of my life. His blood pressure had dropped to 60/40 and the nurse later told me me at that point his vital organs were not receiving enough blood and oxygen. I thank God that I listened to my gut and pushed his doctor to get seen by the ER earlier. They immediately rushed him to a room and began administering fluids and medicines to calm and regulate his body. He was severely dehydrated and his body was in chaos because of his blood pressure dropping so low. Needless to say, took him off the medication his doctor prescribed him. He was there overnight and thankfully we were able to come home late the next day after they got him stabilized.

I knew that I could get him healthy without relying on medication as a bandaid, so I began researching meals and foods that would lower his blood pressure naturally. We used grass fed and organic ingredients. We got outside and the sun in our eyes and on our skin as much as we could. We avoid seed oils and natural flavors like the plague. We began walking daily. He stopped drinking. He stopped eating late at night. And we monitored his blood pressure daily. At his follow-up visit with the new osteopathic doctor I found for him, every stat was perfect. He had even lost 20 pounds and his acid reflux improved dramatically. We were able to do all this on our own naturally without prescription medication. It’s still mind boggling to me that rather than suggest lifestyle changes from the get go, his former doctor immediately put him on two different medications.

Things began to settle down, the weather finally started changing, and we got into a great routine. It was college football and Halloween, my favorite seasons and I thought life was finally calming down. Then October came and it was my own turn to enter the hospital…