Football, High School and My Mom..

Not necessarily in that order...

My mom is doing a lot better. She's been home for two weeks and is getting stronger. She still gets pretty short of breath when she walks and talks, but the doctor said that will get better. She needs to do her breathing exercises and walk more. I think we're going to the pancake feed tomorrow morning. At least I want to go. I'll be going over there after the game tonight. I need to set up her pills for the week and then I'll stay over.

Jordy is starting tonight. He hasn't started since the two suspended players were back. I think he's excited. I know I am. I'm such a proud aunt and I'll tell anyone who will listen how great he is.

My class reunion is this weekend. The big 2-0. I hated high school. Some parts were okay, but the overall experience was not that great. I've been in contact with a few of my classmates over the past weeks. I'll see them over the weekend. Tonight after the football game and after I check on my mom, I'll go to the dance. It's an all-class gig and my in-laws will be there which means I can hang out with my father-in-law. He's great and although he will never replace my dad, it's nice to have him there when I need him. He reminds me of my dad - especially when we have a few beers together.

I'll have an update after the weekend. I don't think it will be as exciting as Missy's, but I'm sure I have something to talk about.

I'm taking Jordy and Jakey out for lunch tomorrow. Jakey's birthday was Thursday. He turned 13. I'm sure when they are 25 and 23 I will still be calling them Jordy and Jakey! I'm sure they won't mind.

Wheat has been over to play the Wii a few times. I haven't been able to play it as much as I would like because I've been so busy with work. Hopefully in a few weeks it will slow down.

Well...I better get going...until next time...

Traveling...

So I'm traveling for work. It's going pretty good. I'm traveling with a co-worker. She does the same thing that I do only she has been doing it for longer. She's so good at what she does that I sometimes wonder if I'll ever know everything like she does. It's nice to travel with someone.

Now I know what I'll need to do when I travel. I don't know when the first time I will travel alone, but I'm sure it will be fine.

I've been eating WAY TOO MUCH. I should go down and work out a little bit. Walk on the treadmill or something, but I'm sure I'll just stay in the room and go to bed early. I also need to do some work stuff. I don't know if that will happen either.

My mom is doing better every day. I talked to her this morning and she was getting along good. My aunt will be leaving tomorrow morning. It was nice to not have to worry about my mom. She was in good hands. I'll go and see her tomorrow night and then take her to Jordy's football game. I think she's ready to get back to normal. I know I'm ready for her to get back to normal.

The new shows start next week. I can't wait. I live for the season premiers. I know - it's sad. I had a message from my nephew that he wants me to be done with work stuff so he can come over and play the Wii. I miss playing it too. Brently is going to get really good when I'm traveling and then he will be able to beat me. I don't like that one bit.

Until next time...

The Light...

I see the light at the end of the tunnel. My mom is doing better. I took her home on Thursday. I got home late Saturday night and did absolutely nothing on Sunday. I bought a Wii on Saturday afternoon and Brently set it up in the basement. He's playing on it right now. I think he likes it better than I do.

Mom had a Dr. appt today. Everything is right on track. It's going to take her a while, but I'm sure she's on the road to recovery. My aunt is staying with her this week but I still feel guilty not being there. I didn't go to Jake or Jordy's game tonight either. I just wanted to come straight home. I worked an entire day which I haven't done in about two weeks. It went fast and I was busy the whole day. It was nice.

Short and sweet today. I don't feel much like writing....

Finally

Mom feels better. Finally. She was moved from ICU this afternoon and is now on the cardiac rehab floor in a private room that looks like an apartment. She has been sitting up and walking. She just laid down and is getting ready to take the miracle drug - Vicodine! I could use some of that too.

I feel so much better and have had some time to reflect on how bad things really were. I don't want to dwell on that too much because it will really depress me. To think how close I was to losing my mom scares me. When her nurse said that someone was watching over her, I said, "I know who it was," and that was my dad. At first I was mad at my dad because I thought he wanted her with him, then I realized he was just helping her get what she needed. So I've apologized to my dad a couple times. I know he is smiling down at me and Jacque and my mom. He knows how much we all need each other. Thanks again Dad.

I went to work for a few hours today. It was okay. There were several people that didn't know what was going on so having to tell the story again and again sucked.

She isn't feeling good right now. Just some pain and it kills me to see her like this. She was fine a few minutes ago and now she doesn't feel good. It happens just that fast. Hopefully the pain medicine will kick in soon and she'll get some sleep.

I'll hang out here tonight and we'll watch a little football together.

Until next time....

When they say stay out - stay out!

That's something that I learned yesterday afternoon. It was a rough day at the hospital. My mom didn't have a blood pressure for about 3 hours and they couldn't figure out what was wrong. Turns out she lost some blood. There was a lot of other stuff that happened too, but I'm a little foggy on that.

The day started out good. They went to put her in a chair and all hell broke loose. They finally got her stable around 8 last night. I was here by myself and called Brently about 3 to come and hang out with me. They kicked me out around 3:30 to start working on mom. The pastor showed up around 4pm and some other friends around 6pm. The doctors were in and out and kept telling me the would come and get me. I went in her room once and all kinds of stuff was going on. Dr. K took me by the arm and told me to wait outside. I was pretty antsy and went back in a little while later and saw some stuff I didn't need to see and some stuff that I won't ever be able to forget. When the doctors tell you to wait out side - wait outside!

She finally got settled down and then Jacque came up for a few hours to look at her.

Things seem to be better - but I'm not going to make any decisions on that until later. I do know that she will be in the hospital for longer than we thought. I'd rather have her here to at home right now. One of the doctor's said, "That's why we do this here and you don't do it at home." I guess that makes sense to me.

Well, something is beeping so I better check it out.

Until later...

Just when you think it couldn't get any worse....

So. Well. Let's see. I should have blogged a few weeks ago. I should have written about my middle nephew starting his first varsity football game. How he texted me "I love you too" which is funny because he normally doesn't do anything like that. How he played a great game even though they lost. I should have blogged about my awesome Labor Day weekend. How I spent it with my sister and her family and how I took my MX-5 on a poker run and how after going for a ride with my brother-in-law I was ready to buy a bike. I should have been blogging about how much fun I've had with Wheat since he's been up here. How we've starting going out for supper on Tuesday nights. The first Tuesday night was Hooters and the second was another wing place. How he and his friends taught me how to play Halo in x-box and didn't care that I was hanging out with them in their suite. That's the stuff I should have been blogging about for the past few weeks......

I'm blogging in a hospital room. I'm blogging while looking at my mom in a hospital bed. I'm blogging less than 24 hours after my mom had a quadruple bypass. Blogging from the ICU is not one of the places I even thought I would be blogging from.

It started out a fairly normal week. Monday I was off for Labor Day and watched the parade at my sisters with everyone. My niece was first runner up in the little beauty pageant they have and was waving at us from the convertible she was riding in. My mom had been acting a little weird all weekend, but we really didn't think much about it. She had been complaining of a bad headache. We should have pushed her to do something about it. We should have done a lot of things different. She left my sister's without saying goodbye which was kind of weird, but again, didn't really think anything about it.

On Tuesday I talked to my sister and she told me, "I told Mom, 'Am I making you a doctor's appointment? or are you going to?'" My sister said that my mom had already made an appointment for Wednesday.

My phone rang about 3:30 on Wednesday afternoon. I was in a meeting but saw it was from my sister so I left the room and answered it. I was not prepared for what she said. "They think mom had a heart attack on Friday." was how she started the conversation. I don't know exactly what I said. Something like, "I'm on my way." My sister said that wait because she was pretty sure they were bringing her to Omaha. I went outside, cried a little and then went back inside to get my desk cleaned up and wait for the call.

I met my mom and sister at the hospital around 6pm on Wednesday night. They were going to do a heart cath at 7:30 Thursday morning. We both stayed all night with mom, like we would go anywhere else. They took her down and we went to wait in the waiting room. The doctor came out about 10 minutes later and called us into the little room. I call it the bad news room. He said, "I have good news and bad news, what do you want first?" My sister said, "The bad news." and the doctor said, "Well, the good news is that her heart is strong, but the bad news is she has three blockages of about 95%. If she would have waited another day, you would have brought her in dead." Wow. That's not something you hear everyday. At this point my sister glazed over and I went into listen mode. They were going to do surgery either today or tomorrow and we caught it in time and all was going to be okay.

We were able to go back with my mom and talk to the doctor. He explained everything and said that he would do the surgery on Friday morning. At this time my mom's younger sister and my uncle showed up. I went out and hung out with them while my sister (who I'll go ahead and call Jacque because it's hard to keep typing my sister) stayed with my mom. Mom finally got up to her room around 12:30 and so I left Jacque with my mom and I headed home (only 20 minutes away) and took a shower and got some more clothes. I got back around 3;30 and then Jacque headed home to talk to the kids and let them know what was going on and sleep for a while. Jacque was trying to decided if she should sleep in a little bit or come back before the surgery started. The nurse got me a reclining chair and I slept right beside mom all night. My phone rang around 4am and it was Jacque and she was on her way up. Turns out it was probably a good thing that she did.

I'm skipping a lot of things that I'll probably come back and talk about. (just a FYI)

They come and get mom around 6:30am. Jacque and I follow them down to the pre-op room. There are a lot of people running around and a lot of different rooms. It was amazing that there were that many rooms and that many people and it all seemed to be running smoothly! Mom was in her room and they were hooking her up to a bunch of stuff. Then the fun happened. The dude come to start a few lines for IV's and the such. Jacque was up there talking to mom and I kind of had my back turned. I'm not good and watching the poking so I wasn't it. Then all of a sudden I started not feeling good so I sat on the little chair. I was trying to talk myself out of it because I knew that Jacque will kill me if I got sick. I was sitting there and then the dude came around the bed with some gauze that had blood on it. That's all it took. I said, "I don't feel good" and then I started sweating and turned white. The got mom out of the room and moved her somewhere else to finish things up and brought in a bed for me. I laid down and started feeling better but man was Jacque mad. I know that she was concerned, but in the way that we are, she said a few choice words and was really mad that she had to stay with me. "Mom's having open heart surgery and it's all about you." It made me laugh and she laughed too.

Mom made it through surgery but they got started late thanks to me!

After we knew she was okay, Jacque left to go home and get everyone ready for Jordy's football game. Mom said she the one thing we had to promise was to go to Jordy's football game. We did. Brently & I picked up Wheat and Seth and we all went to the game together. We got there and I went and sat by Jacque and her friend Christy. Christy looked at me at pointed to the ambulance by the field. "The ambulance is right there if you feel like you might faint." Jacque laughed and said, "That's never going to get old."

Jordy lost but it was a much better game than last week.

I got back to the hospital around midnight and sat with mom until 1am. Then I went home for some sleep in my own bed. I got here around 10 this morning and that takes you to present time. I'm here to cover her up, turn the fan up and down and make sure her feet stay uncovered. I can do that.

Yesterday when they wouldn't let me in to see her (they were getting her stable after the surgery) I kept sneaking in. I got kicked out twice and then the third time they said I could come in just for a minuted. I walked in and one of the cute guys working on mom said, "Now you're not the one that passed out this morning are you." Man - I can't catch a break.

Mom is sleeping a little bit right now. They are going to change her sheets in a while and I'll take that time to get something for lunch. I'm hoping they move her to another room this afternoon to get out of ICU.

Thanks for listening and I'll write more later.