My mom

(If I had a recent picture of my mom, I'd put it here. I can't find one. Note to self-take more pictures of people. Especially the ones who don't want pictures taken.)

It's been a while since I've written about my mom. It has now been seven months since she had her stroke. Overall, she is doing well. It's always good to look back and see the remarkable progress she has made, but at the same time it is sad thinking of the abilities she has lost. Her vision hasn't improved, she still has only 50% of her vision in each eye. She cannot drive and may never be able to again. Can you imagine? However she can read and that's what she spends a lot of her time doing.

Her left side is still kind of numb. Definately better than it was, but she says it constantly tingles and often hurts. However she can walk quite normally and it wasn't long before she got back into her routine of walking every day.

My mom's stroke effected her appetite. Often, she doesn't think to eat. She does eat because she knows she should, but it's not like there is a driving force behind it. She has lost 30 pounds since her stroke. She is a skinny little thing. Too skinny.

When my mom had her stroke of course they did a myriad of different scans on her brain. Lots of interesting things came to our attention because of those scans. We were told that she had significant damage to her frontal lobe. It wasn't new, infact it was very old damage. I think my Grandma figured out it may have been from a bike crash or a car accident that my mom was involved in when she was younger. It's makes me wonder what damage my brain has sustained.

Another thing we found out from the scan was that she has an aneurysm. A pretty significant one at that. At first they said that aneurysm had nothing to do with the stroke, then they wondered if it did, and now after a test they did a couple of weeks ago they are pretty certain the aneurysm had nothing to do with the stroke. However, they recommend surgery. So, she will be having brain surgery in a couple of weeks. Scary.

So my sister said that one in twenty people has an aneurysm. Would you want to know if you have one?

Craziness

I've finally found some time to sit down and right a blog, and it seems that a lot of things I wanted to write about have fallen out of my head. Maybe if I start writing I'll remember things. Maybe.

My Precious

I've lost my wedding ring. Remember when I lost the diamond and then found it? I was going to get insurance on my ring after that incident, but I had to get my ring appraised and I just never did. I only put my ring three places and it is in none of those places. It bums me out. I told my niece I would pay her $5 if she found it, but she only looked for like 10 minutes and then gave up.

Hungry little monsters

My sister and brother-in-law have been out of town the past week, and their three children have spent the week with us. It hasn't been bad at all. The craziest thing about the week is the amount of food we are going through. My boys started eating more a couple of weeks ago because it's spring and they have been a lot more active, but add three more kids to the mix and 'holy crap.'

Ben and Jack love having their cousins here. Jack has fallen asleep almost every night in Brooklynn's arms. He loooooooooooves her. Jack wakes up every morning before the kids leave for school and then we they leave he says to me with the saddest little voice, "why do they have to leave again?"

Bladder of Steel

Jack has had a dry diaper at night for a couple of months now. I am pretty laid back when it comes to potty training. Ben wasn't ready until he was 3 and I wasn't going to push Jack to be potty trained before then. However, since he was having dry diapers I thought I should try. So, we've tried. Even though I am certain his bladder is full, he cannot pee. He tries, but it just doesn't happen, even if he sits there for fifteen minutes. Sometimes he doesn't even pee in his diaper until he has been awake over an hour. I wish my bladder was that strong. I don't think it ever was and then I had kids. Now it's a joke.

Mother's Day

I know it was a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to write about it. I don't like Mother's Day, okay I hate it. I think it's a silly holiday, and I stupidly have expectations of the day. It's a hard day for me because it's just a reminder that there is never a break when you're a mom. I often get overwhelmed because we want to go to Chad's mom and my mom's and we usually spend most of the day taking care of things for meals at both places and driving all over the place. This year my mother-in-law was out of town and my mom was in the hospital, so you think it would have been more laid back, but I still had to cook and clean and deal with crazy kids. Wow, I'm ornery.

So, next year I am either going out of town for Mother's Day or I am going to forget about myself and just honor my mom and Chad's mom. And since I was so ornery about Mother's Day, I am trying to me more mindful of the day to day things my kids do to show me they love me. And they do a lot.

My mom

She came home from the hospital a week ago. She was in the hospital for a little over two weeks. My older sister Jennifer, my aunt Gail, my brother, and my dad took turns being at the hospital with her. My aunt's Kim and Roxann helped out too and a family friend, Janene came to the rescue one day when we needed her help. It was a crazy and intense two weeks. Although my mom was tired of being in the hospital coming home has been very difficult.

I can't even imagine going through what's she is going through. She can't read because of her eye problem and problems with her brain. She can walk, but she gets tired just walking around the block. (She use to walk three miles every single day, up and down the hills.) She wasn't really a television watcher before, but because of her eyes she doesn't really like watching it at all now. She doesn't like riding in the car. She just can't do a lot of the things she loves to do.

If I was her I would just want to sleep all the time, but unfortunately she isn't sleeping well. She is in a very dark place emotionally. Understandably.

Overwhelming

Overwhelming.

That would be the theme for the week. This has been one of the longest weeks of my life, and it hasn't even been a week yet. But for however long it seems to me, it probably seems at least ten times longer for my mom. At least ten times, probably a hundred. The other day in her hospital room one of my relatives covered up the clock with a wash cloth because my mom couldn't believe how long every single minute was taking to pass.

I keep hoping that this is just a bad dream. Whenever I wake up in the middle of the night I think to myself, "did I just have a bad dream and what I think happened hasn't really happened? Oh I hope so." But no. It's real.

I expect things to be pretty intense for weeks and months. And while I am first and foremost concerned for my mom, it's hard not to be completely overwhelmed by what it is going to mean for my life. I wasn't expectingto be a caregiver for my mom for a very long time. However, I am so glad I am a mom myself and I have learned how difficult it is fill that role. How difficult it is to give of yourself all the time and then give some more. It is going to be difficult to figure out how to care for my little family and be there for my mom. Just like it will be difficult for those in my family who want to help, but have full-time jobs. My dad has always provided for my mom, but hasn't very often had to 'care' for her. And I am sure he is completely blindsided by the intesity of that aspect of the situation. I think we all need to just do our best to just 'do.' To look past the complexity of relationships and just focus on my mom.

So, how is my mom doing? Here is a short synopsis of the past few days-

Sunday while at church, the end of church, the stroke happened.

My dad and brother took her over to Lakeview Hospital.

She was life-flighted to the University Hospital.

She was given TPA (the clot busting-drug)

Spent 24 hours in the critical care unit.

Spent about 24 hours in the acute care unit.

Moved to in-patient rehab.

Yesterday was her first full day in inpatient rehab and she started therapy. The first day didn't go so well. She isn't getting any rest and she is exhausted. She is dizzy, probably for a multitude of reasons, but one of them being she only sees 50% of the world, the left side of everything. Well, at least I think that would make me dizzy. She keeps her eyes closed most of the time, I would too. She is constantly saying she feels like half is her is missing. She can't feel her right side. She can walk, sort of, but it's overwhelming to her. She complained one day that she was soo hot and yesterday she kept complaining how cold she was. Cognitively she is mostly there, but every once in a while she makes a strange comment. You can tell her brain is just trying to reboot.

I am hopefully that everyday she will physically get better or just adjust to her limitations now and learn to compensate for them. I am glad I am not her.

And I am soooooooo glad Chad will be home tomorrow from his Cancun work trip. (I didn't mention it earlier this week because I didn't want to broadcast to the work that he was gone. I wouldn't have been able to sleep at night.)

I am grateful for so many things this week. I have no idea what I would do without my sister Jennifer. Although we at times have frustrations with other 99.9% of the time we just 'get each other.' I am grateful for my little boys. Life as a mother is insanely demanding, just keeping the kids fed and the dishes done alone is a lot of work, but this week I was insanely grateful for the responsibilities my kids bring, because I know how to do them. I am grateful for a close extended family. I grateful my mom was healthy and although that didn't prevent her from having a stroke, hopefully it will help her heal. I am grateful for friends who have called and offered to help. And I am grateful that the branch that broke off the tree in the backyard wasn't big enough to pull down the power line that I am certain it landed on first and instead pulled down the internet/cable line. And the internet still works. I could live without it, but I am glad I don't have to.

Unbelievable

I am not that old. Although sometimes I feel old, I'm really not that old. And since I am not that old, then my mom isn't all that old either.

My mom is one of the healthiest people I know. For as long as I can remember she wakes up at 5:30 in the morning to go walking for an hour. She use to just do this five days a week but for a while now I think she has been walking on Saturdays and Sundays as well. She tries to eat healthy as much as possible.

Much to my surprise this afternoon I got a text message from my brother that my mom was being life-flighted to University Hospital because she had suffered a stroke. I wasn't expecting to hear that something like this had happened to my mom for a very long time. It's all very overwhelming and my heart aches for my mom.

It could have been worse, she could have lost her ability to walk and talk. Fortunately the stroke didn't effect those areas of her brain. Unfortunately it effected the back of her brain, which controls vision. Fortunately she isn't blind. Unfortunately, she has has something called hemianopsia. She has lost half of her vision in each eye. And it's most likely permanent. It breaks my heart.

She is aware enough to know something pretty terrible has happened, but not aware to understand what or what it means. Me and me siblings each spent a few minutes with her in the Neuro Critical Care Unit yesterday. She just kept saying she was sorry over and over again and we all just got an overwhelming sense of how scared she is.

My mom also has an aneurysm, which may or may not have contributed to the stroke, we will find out more in the coming days.

Please pray for her. She could use lots of them.