Roller Coaster

This week has been such a roller coaster ride...  There were a few moments when I honestly thought I might be going insane.  How could such awesome news be followed by such horrible news...and then followed by even worse news...and then followed by good news again?  I'm fat...and fat people can't handle this kind of thing!  We need to be EASED into the next phase.  You can't just throw us in the raging river and expect us to swim! 

We started the week with some great news.  My new nephew, Sammy, was released from the hospital on Easter Sunday!  How awesome is that?  Having had 2 babies that I could not bring home with me when I was discharged, I know what an exciting and scary time that had to be for my brother and sister-in-law!  They have waited for this miracle baby for SO long and then to have such a crazy delivery, followed by a long hospital stay...this was very, VERY good news!

On Monday morning, I had my weekly weigh-in and received some more exciting news.  I hit my first 'big' goal.  I am now 3 10# bags of flour lighter!  That's right, 30 lbs are gone.  I have NEVER, on any other weight loss plan I've tried over the last 15 years, lost that much weight...until now.  I was SO skeptical of this program...wondering what was going to make it so different from any other program...but here I am, doing it...and it's WORKING!  I cannot tell you how happy I am.  Not only did I see a number on the scale that I haven't seen in a long time and not only did I break a weight loss curse that has been hanging over me for years...but I also am down 2 sizes in my jeans!  It feels great!

By Monday afternoon I knew my good luck was running out.  This is when Lili was diagnosed with strep...which lead to the identification of Will's ear/sinus infections and my ear infection as well (see previous post).  Not feeling well stinks, but having sick kids makes it even worse!

After a night of awful sleep, my high-on-life attitude was completely destroyed Tuesday morning when my sister called me at work to tell me that Mom had a stroke.  She was running home to grab clothes and was going to head to Toledo ASAP.  For 2 days, Mom barely spoke...didn't recognize anyone...and slept.  They did all kinds of tests...CT scan, bloodwork, EEG, MRI...and found all kinds of problems.  She had 1 significant stroke in the frontal lobe of her brain and quite a few smaller strokes in the same area.  Her sodium was low, they found protein in her urine and she showed an iron deficiency.  Although they reported all of these things to us, no one could tell us what it all 'meant'.  When was Mom going to wake up?  Would she ever recognize her children again?  Would she recover from everything that happened?  Would she need care for the rest of her life? 

On Wednesday night things seemed to get even worse.  Before Kristen left for the evening Mom's primary nurse started asking her all kinds of questions.  If Mom were to take a turn for the worse, what did she want them to do?  Did Mom have a living will and could she bring it to the hospital?  He also made comments about feeding tubes...and how that might be something they would need to do soon if she didn't improve.  I know a lot of this was just a precaution, however it SCARED ME.  I mean, it REALLY scared me.  I know strokes are bad and I know that her being in the ICU wasn't 'good'...but I guess I had never entertained the idea of her not getting better.  I never thought that she wouldn't improve and eventually get to go home...and then there they were, talking about very SERIOUS 'stuff'...  I don't think I slept much last night.  I had a knot in the pit of my stomach that just wouldn't go away.

This morning I woke up to AMAZING news again!  Kristen called to tell me that Mom was awake!  She knew her name and her birthdate...and she recognized Kristen when she came into the room!  We learned a lot today about what to expect in the coming weeks/months...and I know poor Kristen is in information overload...but the most important thing is that Mom is making progress and we truly believe she will get better.  She might not ever be 100% back to the way she was, but she will be close!  We have a lot of decisions to make about rehabilitation and how to cover medical bills since she has no insurance, but we will get it figured out.  I think we are all so relieved to have our Mom back that nothing else really matters at this point! 

Let's just hope the good news continues!