Tuesday, June 03, 2008

long time, no post

i think a bout blogging. honest, i do. but a lot of my online time is spent doing L&V things, or twitter, or the endless task of catching up on my bloglines, or yahoo, and with the kids out of school, my time is less my own than normal. so posting s uffers.

no pics, although i'll try for some tomorrow. laminaria stopped for a wee bit, cuz i realized i hadn't done much charity crafting last month, and felt the need to do so. hence, the hat/baby sock set, green booties, and 12 squares drying all over the house (they're wool, so no dryer). may's project was for nunavit, in canada, for a birthing center (rankin island, i think?). they asked for wool cuz it never gets truly warm there.

anyway, the real reason why i'm posting.

my mom went in the hospital for a couple of days last week. all in all, it wasn't a big deal, but it scared me to start with. tomorrow is the 7th anniversary of my father's death from a massive stroke. when my mom called me last thursday and told me she was dizzy, i worried. the doctor's office said to take her to the ER, so i drove over there quickly, and hauled ass up to the hospital. she was definitely off balance, because while i was helping her out to the van, i could feel the wobble.

they did a cat scan, and found what they were calling a TIA. a mini-stroke. when the doctor told me that, a large part of me was screaming inside. not again! my grandmother, who also passed away 7 years ago (33 days before my father, it was a WONDERFUL year), had started the downhill slide with a stroke the day after thanksgiving.

she went into AL for the winter, then had another stroke in the spring, which caused her to fall, and break a hip. my mother's cousin was guardian since my mom was so far away, and they had determined the best course of action was to put her in a nursing home. she passed away that night. nurse checked on her at 2 am, and she was sleeping peacefully. checked again at 4 am, and she was gone.

anyway, the dizziness was my mom's ONLY symptom. and it was predominantly light-headedness. this is important. they decided to admit her, so they could do more intensive testing. that afternoon, a neurological med student came up, and got as much info as she could about what happened. the neurologist came thenext morning, and we found out that it wasn't a TIA. apparently, she'd had an incident a long time ago, and that was what they'd found in the cat scan. it's not uncommon in people my mother's age (80) to have those kinds of things. we never knew because she'd never exhibited any symptoms. so, now what? she'd been hanging shower curtains, and had gotten dizzy after looking up and putting her arms up several times. problems with carotids or vertebral arteries? neck ultrasound it is. however, that wasn't it. then, the nurse noticed that when my mom was resting, her heartbeat was normal. when she'd move around, her heartbeat would double. hmmmm. call the cardiologist. they say she'd better stay one more day, and they start discussing meds. they tell me 50 mgs of a medication used to regulate her heartbeat. i'm confused. no, supposed to be 150. so they double check the chart. they called walgreens for the doses, and walgreens told them 50.

it seems there was a mixup between the cardiologist's prescription, and what walgreens interpretted it as, and she'd been short-changed since JANUARY. some days. so they upped it to what it had been before, and things went back to normal. she went home saturday morning, and we even went and wrestled witht he bank about a fuck-up they did.

except. as i age, i see fewer generations ahead of me. it's always felt like the older generations were a barrier between me and time itself. my grandmothers have been gone 7 & 16 years, respectively. my grandfathers died in 67 and 78. in my father's family, the only one left is my aunt frances, and she's 90 and in the nursing home. my mother is an only child, andall her cousins are either aging, or gone themselves. as the youngest granddaughter in my generation, i have several cousins who have retired. the oldest 2 are 78. the barrier is slowly dissolving. the only things standing between me and that vast abyss of time are my mother and aunt. and the aunt is standing on ice with one foot, and a banana peel with the other. my mom is doing alright, but she's got a laundry list of heart-related problems, as well as a laundry list of medications.

today pushed it a little farther along. she called me again this morning, and said she had a cut, and wanted to see the doctor. she's on blood thinners, so this concerned me. she had been folding up a card table last night, andit got away from her, and smacked the back of her right knee, and cut her. she had bandaged it, and gone to bed, not thinking muchof it. she got up this morning to find it bleeding again, and blood on the sheets. i didn't know what was going on, so to the ER again, we went. they removed some torn skin, cauterized the bleeding, bandaged it, and sent us on our way. she's fine. we even went grocery shopping this afternoon (and she's a power shopper, lemme tell you. $105 later, we went on our way).

except. i'm terrified of losing my mother. but i know that i will be the one on the front line when it does finally happen. the brother who truly cares is in georgia, and the other one is too involved in his own life to even bother coming to visit on a regular basis (he goes for months without calling or visiting, and then, visits when it suits him, and he's only 1 1/2 hours away). some day, i will get a call, or find her, or get more bad news. i know it's inevitable.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

*hug* Hang in there. I am sending good thoughts you and your families way. Its never easy to be faced with the possibilities. My sister is 28 and has a disease that will limit her life. Its inevitable. No one that has her form of this disease has lived past 43. I tell you this only because you are not alone. The dreaded call could come at any time and you just have to enjoy what you have now.

Besides with as mean and stubborn as you are you have MANY years left. :P

Guernseygal said...

Hugs - I can understand your worry. My MIL is elderly and not in the best of health, she has just been admitted to hospital for the third time this year. We have finally persuaded her that she needs to go into a nursing home, where she will recieve round the clock care - we all work and cannot be there during the day and everytime the phone rings you fear the worst - has she fallen, is there a problem. It will be a grest weight off our minds knowing that she has someone on hand if there is a problem

Sarabeth said...

My mom is still young, relatively at 64, but with my father dying at age 61, I trust nothing about age. I do worry about that lack of a buffer to time as you do, but I wouldn't have described it as such. All we can do is enjoy what we have and prepare for the worst, somehow.

Unknown said...

I'm glad your Mom is feeling better. Sorry your brothers are not more invilved. I hope everything works out. Tale care of yourself and fix a cup of tea and pretend I made it for you.

Ina said...

((((hugs))) That's a full plate of concerns!

Nean the Bean said...

Your post really started that lump in my throat again. My parents are both in their 80s and very frail. I look in on them as they insist upon living alone in their own home. Some days I cry all the way home from their house because I see them slipping away and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I never really understood the whole "sandwich generation" thing until it became my generation. I know what you mean, also, about seeing the barrier dissolve ... it's like the end of an era. We are the aunts and uncles now, as our own are fading away. My faith is what keeps me going and I try to live day to day and more recently, just moment to moment. During the stressful times last year is when is started designing toy patterns. The toys really help, as they are so totally full of nonsense! I'll be thinking of you and yours.