Gratitude Journal

Welcome, Monday!!! I am really wanting to get some sort of normalcy back. It has been a trying couple of weeks for me. I am so very grateful that my mother is getting better daily. Thank You all, for your prayers and concern. There were some very scary moments mixed in there. She confided the other day, she did not think she was going to make it. (I was worried about that too) It was hard and very scary. Mother has taken her last steroids yesterday and I am relieved, they make her so shakey and confused. We are down to 6 breathing treatments a day…at one point she was getting 12. Things are getting better everyday.

My brother and his wife came from Ohio last weekend. They had a good visit with Mom. I have moved the bed out of our guest room and set up a room for mom in what was kind of our home office. This allows her to be part of whats going on and not shut off by herself. Of course I put all the home office stuff in the guest room and I am just getting around to organizing it today. (It is a mess!!) We are having guests next weekend and I would like to have everything done before that.

In other news…Remember the stray cats I fed all winter? Guess What….the mama brought three little kittens to me last week. They were so cute! However, I cannot run a sanctuary for cats, too many and it starts to smell funny. I was able to get close to them after about three days of milk and petting, so I got them in a carrier and off to the humane society.

I felt like the biggest rat! Mama trusted me to feed her babies and I shipped them all out. They said at the shelter they would keep the mama as a barn cat and adopt out the kittens. I hope they have a better life. There is still one more cat around, we have named him Bob as in “Bob”cat. I am hoping I can corral him and have him nuetered, I would like to keep him around, he is a sweet cat. Speaking of cats, I have seen another stray around here, twice. This is not the usual cat as it has six legs! I am not kidding…there are two extras that just swing when he runs. I can’t get close enough to take a picture just yet. I am working on it. He is quite a peculiar looking animal, I had to look twice to make sure I was seeing a cat. A little scary really.

I am hoping as things get back to normal…my dull uneventful life (LOL)…I will be able to get back to blogging. It is so funny how life has a way of just taking over all your good blogging time. Hugs and Kisses! Many Many Thanks for all the prayers, kind words and concern. It makes a hard situation easier!

Just another quick note to everyone. First, Thank You all so much for the prayers and concern. We brought Mother home with us last evening. They  released her to us with home health care. We will be having a nurse visit every other day and an aide each day in between. They got her a wheelchair and a bedside commode. All this fuss…she is doing  very well! Better than I expected. I think it is because of all the prayers. She sat at the table for dinner last night and walked to the living room where she sat on the couch for an hour of tv. Praise the Lord! My brother is coming tonight so all is well. Mindy also seems to be doing ok, she lost 8 lbs this week and she is very happy with that. I am off to finish making dinner, chicken and dumplings….yum! Thanks Again Everyone!

First an UPDATE on my Mom. She is still in the hospital and it doesn’t seem like her breathing is getting any better. We are still praying. I am getting a room ready for her here with us, once she is released. I think she will have to get a lot better before that happens but she is excited to know I am going to keep her here with me until she is well. I want to thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, for your prayers, your concern, and just your great big compassionate hearts! Love and Hugs to all of you! I am truly Grateful for each and everyone of you! Please read on for our little family encore……..

Slice of Life choices for the week of April 27, 2008 are:

1. Family vacation.

2. Family heirloom.

3. Community service.

Go Here, to play along or to read what others have written. Now let me tell you what I like so much about this meme. NO RULES!! You can choose any of the weekly prompts from weeks before and there is no special day it HAS to be posted. Sometimes I read a prompt and nothing comes together in my mind, but weeks later TADA something moves me. This week I shall write about “The Illness of a Child”

When I think of the illness of a child, the image that comes to my mind is one of a youngster. We have all been through those illnesses, measles, mumps, or just some nasty flu. I think of children with cancers and other fatal dieseses. I have learned a lot lately about Autism and I wonder what that is to deal with in a child. All of these images and more rush into my mind and yet I am going to write about the illness of MY child, who is 34 years old….
Massive headaches, the kind where you have to have silence and all the lights turned off because it hurts so much. Migrain, thats what they call them when they can’t find a reason for them. Thank God, my daughter did not stop at that, with two small children, a husband, a business to run, and a new home being built there was just no way to turn off the lights and shut off the noise.

The next step was an MRI. The doctor for some reason ordered an MRI and a contrast MRI. The contrast scan is not normally ordered unless there has been head trauma, so why the doctor ordered it remains a mystery to everyone but God. This scan revealed Arnold Chiari Malformation or ACM. This is a very rare birth defect not normally found in time. These are the basics…the hole where the spinal cord goes into the brain is malformed, it is too large and allows too much spinal fluid into the brain. You can imagine the pressure. The bad thing about all of this is as the spinal fluid is forced into the brain it also forces the brain down into the spinal cord. Enter the Nuerologist…..

The nuerologist doesn’t think her ACM is bad enough to require surgery at this point and that is the only treatment so he prescribes some hefty pills for the headaches. The pills do not help her at all so…Enter New Nuerologist…..

The new nuerologist says on top of the ACM she has 5 herniated discs in her neck and he wants to know what college she played football for….hehehehehe. She is to start physical therapy for the discs. He also notices she has 3 growths on her thyroid gland so…..Enter Endrocrinologist.

Mindy manages to get to therapy 3 times a week for six weeks. A trip to the endrocrinologist reveals the thyroid is producing hormone but a biopsy is in order. Fortunately the biopsy is negative. The thyroid gland must be monitored closely. During this time female problems arise so she sees the Gynocologist and is scheduled for surgery. Complications arise and the surgery is cancelled, instead they do a D and C. Problem solved, temporarily. Within two weeks she developes a rash on her head and her hair starts falling out. Not just a few hairs, lots of hair, enough to cover the drain in the shower. Mindy called her nuerologist and he refers her to a dermatologist. So….Enter the Dermatologist…..

Two weeks ago Mindy had her appointment with the dermatologist. He did a biopsy. He also did some blood work to look for different things that cause your hair to just start falling out.

Now I tell you all of this for one simple reason, grief. As a mother I want to do something….anything! I can’t stand that “they” refer her back and forth from one “specialist” to the next. I want some say here. When your child is 34 you have no say. You don’t get to ask the questions. You don’t get to know about all the medicine. You don’t get to disagree with the course of treatment and you don’t get to control the diet. It is a hard lesson but you don’t get to be the mother. This person that you have spent your life taking care of is able to take care of themselves and others. It is very frustrating. You have always been able to make her days better and kiss away the boo boos. Not today. There is no cool cloth to fix this. An orange popcicle doesn’t bring a smile any more. I want someone to take the time to connect the dots here. There are too many things way too fast. My dear God, there is really something wrong!! ….and I can’t fix it. I am trying to be careful here and not “mother” aka “smother” her. I am growing weary of all the doctor visits. I am sad because my child does not feel well. She is in constant pain of one sort or the other. She is short of breath. She still has the headaches. As her Mother I want her to get well. I want to see her happy, smiling and laughing again. I want everything we always want, just like a two year old with a tummy ache, I want it to go away.
Mindy went back to the dermatologist on Tuesday, she called me as she left the office. All the “specialists” she has seen in the last year, finally, someone connected those dots…………..lupus. UGH!!! Not what I wanted to hear. I know how serious this is but I also know how far medicine has come. I am grateful to finally know what we are dealing with. It is not a death sentence like it used to be and there are lots of treatments. Mommy is not going to be able to kiss this boo boo away. I can only hope an orange popcicle will bring a smile anyway…. Enter the Rheumatologist….

Just a quick update…….Mother has been back in the hospital. She is being treated for complications with her lungs. Please add her to your prayer list. We are running back and forth, twice a day. I will post more when I have a few minutes to call my own. I am grateful that while being treated with steroids, she is in the hospital. We have done this at home before and it is not very easy. Hope everyone has a great day!

Friday already….I often wonder where the time goes. I have had a harrowing couple of days. Wednesday evening my mothers neighbor, who is a nurse, called to tell me she thought they should call the squad for mother. Mom has been having trouble with her leg. It has been painful with some swelling for the last week. The pain was shifting above the knee so everyone thought it best to have it checked for a blood clot. This is also the same leg they stripped the veins from for her heart surgery six years ago. This presented a smal dilemna for me as it was 8:30 pm and I am not able to drive after dark. Totally night blind, I have a hard time walking after dark. I called my daughter to see if she could come and take me to the hospital, which she did. We stayed in the ER until about 2:00 am while they ran tests. Everything came back negative for a clot, which I am very Grateful for, but they wanted her to come back and have an ultrasound on it Thursday. Small town hospital. We took her home and got her settled in for the night. I finally got to bed around 3:30 am.

I went back to Mom’s about noon on Thursday and we were back to the hospital for the ultrasound. It is very hard to work with an elderly patient in pain and the lady who administered the test was fabulous. She was very patient and explained to mom everything she was doing. She even had us wait in the waiting room while she contacted mom’s doctor to give us the results. Praise the Lord, NO CLOT! I am so thankful for that! We still don’t know for sure what is causing all this discomfort but the serious stuff is ruled out.

I am looking forward to a peaceful weekend, not doing much of anything. I hope you all have a peaceful weekend as well!

Grandma Duty….again.

Visit others or play along here.

Happy Earth day Everyone! Sweetie and I spent an enjoyable weekend at the Ohio River. We were invited to a shrimp boil at The Ridge Winery on Saturday evening. We left early Saturday morning and meandered down to the river. We stopped at a couple of flea markets along the way and browsed through all the treasures. We found a bulk food store around Versailles and knew we had to stop there. I was able to “Load up” on wheat germ, oat bran, cous cous, natural snacks like roasted soy beans and pumpkin seeds. It was great. I am so grateful we found it, the prices were awesome. We continued on to Vevay and did a small driving tour looking at the amazing historical buildings. It was then time to head out to the Ridge for the shrimp boil.

This is one of our favorite places. Tracey and Gregg are just lovely people and I can tell you they sure know how to throw a party! There were 26 couples. We shared in the feast of Shrimp, potatoes, carrots, mushrooms,and onions with sides that included coleslaw and homemade corn muffins. The meal was finished with homemade cookies and ice cream. Of course there was wine, not for me, but everyone seemed to enjoy it. We met a few new couples and had a wonderful time!

A picture of the party in progress, it is kind of blurry, I was shaking from the cold! The weather was not what we had hoped but the rain stayed away and we were all thankful for that. We left about 10 pm and went to Madison for the night. Madison is one of my favorite destinations, I love the historic architecture, it is a must see in southern Indiana. Sunday morning we got started, after a Bob Evans breakfast and finished up the Indiana Wine trail. The last place on our list was the Stream Cliff Herb Farm and Winery. What an amazing place this was! We spent quite a bit of time here and were fortunate enough to meet the owner and get a little history about the farm. It was so interesting! I have provided links if anyone is interested in seeing where we were all weekend. I am so Thankful that Sweetie and I are able to run off for a fun weekend once in a while. Now I am off to my gardens to plant the new herbs I got! Have a really fun day today and be kind to the earth!