Long road for two weeks

First and foremost, Merry Christmas to all.

I'll start from where I left off in my last post. My mom was admitted to the hospital on the 13th, where they treated her for her bladder infection and watched her calcium levels go down (but not enough in my opinion). On Thursday of that week, she was transferred to a nursing home for physical therapy to start walking and regaining her strength.

I went to visit her on that Friday. She was aware of where she was and not happy about it. She was not walking but would get up and walk some. She was feeding herself and asking to smoke and leave. She wasn't where I had hoped but seemed to be getting some better.

I had to go back to work so I didn't see her until Wednesday. My sister had spent several days with her and kept saying she wasn't getting any better. She took mom to the dr on Monday and they had scheduled a CatScan for Wednesday.

On Wednesday, I went back to see her. She was so much worse. I spent the day crying--I tried to not cry in front of her but the tears kept coming. She couldn't talk, walk or feed herself. She was confused but seemed to know what was going on. I had stopped at her dr's office to ask him to see her but he was out of the office. They scheduled an appt for Thursday.

My heart was so broken. Everyone in the family was so very worried and there were more tears shed than has been cried by our family in the past ten years. I stayed at my parents house on Wednesday night. Cowboy was coming down of Friday for our Christmas celebration.

Thursday morning, when I arrived at the nursing home, mom couldn't even sit up straight in her wheel chair. She was so out of it. More tears for me. I took her to the dr and he took one look at her and sent her to the ER. Thank God. Once she was at the ER, the doctor there took time to look at her records and did a few blood test and sent her on to KU Med center. Again, thank God.

Her calcium levels were up another point--normal is 10. She was at 13.8, up from 12.8 when she was first hospitalized a week before. I left to pack my things and head back home. Cowboy and I met mom at the hospital. Within one hour, they had done more test on her then had been done in the previous two weeks.

She has now been in the hospital for 4 days and is finally to talk and is starting to eat on her own. She is scared and wants to go home but seems to be doing so much better then what she was.

They are thinking that there is a tumor on her parathyroid gland that is causing it to overproduce calcium and making her calcium level to elevate to the point of toxic levels.

This has been the scariest event. I'm thankful that mom is on the mend. It has been the best Christmas present ever. I realized how much my mom means to me and my family. She is a rock for our whole family. I'm praying for a full recovery.

Heartbreaking weekend

This weekend was such a bag of mixed emotions. On Saturday, my niece came up and we crafted Christmas presents all weekend. It was a blast and I totally enjoyed myself and I think she did too.

Sunday was my family (extended) Christmas lunch. I was so looking forward to spending time with the cousins and catching up. This was our year to host so I went straight to the building before stopping by Mom and Dad's. When Mom arrived, I was surprised and shocked. She looked so bad--really beyond bad. She was barely coherent and couldn't really talk. She would start to say something and then loose track of what she was saying and she couldn't stand and walk without someone holding on to her.

About 1:30p, she wanted to go home so my nephew and I helped her home and put her to bed. When I got back to the gathering, I talked with my dad and he broke down and started crying. I've only seen my dad cry once in his life at his mom's funeral. My heart broke. He doesn't know what to do or how to handle the situation. So we put together a plan. My sister would go with him to the hospital for pre-op instructions. My brother and I would take off work and call my mom's doctor and deal with mom.

Long story short, straight to the ER where they found out mom had a really severe bladder infection and very toxic calcium levels. She was admitted and now we're hoping we can get her medicine figured out and get her on the road to recovery.

The whole situation has taken an emotional toll on everyone. My heart breaks for both of my parents.

Crafty Season

I was going to post pictures up of my Christmas Craft but blogger is not cooperating. My niece is coming tomorrow to have a crafting weekend with me. I'm pretty excited.

Christmas Pics

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Cowboy being gone at this time of year is great because it allows me time to decorate for Christmas. However, I decided that before I could decorate, the house needed to be cleaned. Heating our house with a wood stove is great because we don't have a huge gas bill but the downside is dust. I was sitting on the couch and noticed the fine layer of dust under the couches, table, entertainment center, etc. It was driving me crazy. So I cleaned under everything. I mean everything and then put a floor polish on the hardwoods.

Our house is spotless. It looks great and all "Christmas-ie". I feel like I got a ton accomplished today and Cowboy will never know how much work it took.

So the fan on the wood stove stopped working and the kitchen sink is not draining very fast. Actually, it drains at the rate of a turtle stuck in his shell. I had to break down and tell Cowboy after my awesome neighbor came over to look at it. I was hoping it would get fixed before he came home. No such luck.

Speaking of Cowboy. He called me today and told me that my folks invited him to the community supper. He went and ate and played bingo. It just cracks me up to think of him going to our small town community dinner and playing bingo with all the old country folks.

Tomorrow is craft day. That is after I sleep in forever in the morning.

Being Single

I secretly love this time of year. No not the beginning of Winter or December, but the beginning of deer season. Cowboy leaves me for several days. He's gone and I get the whole house to myself. No one complaining if I'm blogging or on Facebook. No one to pick up after or complain if I don't have the dishes done. No one to tell me what I need to do or what I should do.

I'm going to decorate for Christmas. It's so much better to do this with Cowboy being gone. He won't complain about the mess or the fuss that goes into making the house look festive.

I like my moments of singleness. I was single for 40 years give or take a few relationship in there. I like revisiting the times of being single. But don't want to go back so my little vacation is a nice break.