Back to Work

After a five day time period from hell, where Jack Bauer would have even said that's enough, It's time for me and everyone else to start to get back to work.

Let me recap. Mom goes in for a Cardiac catheterization on Wednesday Morning. If they found a problem a stent or a balloon would have been inserted to fix any problems with Mom's ticker. She comes back from surgery and we are told that surgery was needed and that they were admitting her.

All while Mom is in surgery, I get a call from a hysterical Michelle that the house next to her sisters, a friend of hers had blown up and that a friend of hers died in the house fire, all while screaming for help that her children could hear. Upsetting to say the least.

Thursday Mom goes in for surgery that we were hoping could be done with a robot, but her asthma caused it to lead to opening up her chest and doing a double bypass open heart surgery. She was placed in ICU after the surgery until Friday evening.

Friday evening they moved her back up to the 10th floor as the recovery process had started...or so we thought.

Saturday when I first arrived she was very confused. Had trouble trusting people and for the most part of the day seemed to have maybe taken a step back.

Saturday evening was the day from absolute hell. It started off with Mom attempting to walk for the first time since her open heart surgery. She was so excited to actually be walking again that she just took off down the hallway as free as one could be. When she got to the end of the hallway she was very out of breath, starting to panic and frantically crying that she could not breath. A small dose of pain medication was administered and she calmed down.

A little time passed and she was calling out names and phrases much like my Dad did when he was in ICU before he passed away. One or two word phrases that they continually say over and over again.

Doctors walk in and start to examine her, the word stroke is mentioned and as of yet has not been ruled out. During all the chaos and frantic times, I get a call that Jean is bringing Nana into the emergency room as she has just had a stroke. However when I met Jean in the Emergency Room doorway she told me that she thought Nana had a TIA and it appears that may be what had happened. They have admitted Nana, she is doing great, but they are still running a series of tests on her.

Back upstairs and Mom is now being moved to a step down unit (more monitored) and starts having paranoid illusions. Let's just say it was not a pretty night and it was a long night.

Sunday they had moved Mom back to her "Normal" room and the paranoid illusions were still very prevalent, but milder as there was not a room full of people causing her to panic. We did finally get her relaxed and to sleep yesterday evening (she had been going since the night before) and when I called to get an update status on her this morning they said she had rested well throughout the night and was starting to trust and recognize people a little more.

Today I am back at work, then back to the hospital as Michelle is returning to work for the first time since last Wed, she will be going with me to the hospital initially then is going to attend the funeral for her friend who died in the house explosion last week this evening.

It's back to work this morning. So how was everyone else's weekend?