I just don't get it. February is just a short month with Stitches West attached. Somehow it has become the hardest month of the year, for a couple of years running, at least. I love it up here, don't get me wrong. Some people might just chuckle about the whiners with 6 inches of snow but for US, 6 inches of snow can mean Not Getting Out. On Friday the 13th, this happened.
This is the top half of a Ponderosa Pine that simply decided to commit suicide across our driveway. I never heard it happen but trees all over were popping and cracking and falling down. Whole vistas have changed down near Webber Creek with the major changes in trees not built to carry that much snow. We cut this long thing up (it had broken into three pieces) and hauled it to the side of the drive and then Rod uttered the fateful words...we had better shovel this out so that we do not have any surprises to pop a tire. Mmm hmmm...400 yards or so of tarmac, not to mention the concrete pad up here. We shoveled and shoveled and shoveled for 4 hours and then finished after lunch. Little did we know that the power had been out and oh yes, the phone. I guess that there had been many more suicidal trees in the neighborhood and so the next day, when the lineman came up the drive to check on us, I called him Santa Claus. Crab crab crab. The snow is almost melted and I found out the the gal who cuts my hair, who lives further Up The Hill in Pollock Pines got 3 to 4 feet. SHE has a snow blower...
So we got through that and things got going again, here in the workshop. The carder was back making batts.
(Chocolate Fancies, Tropical fruit and some top in Mardi Gras) Life was returning to normal.
Then, yesterday morning I got a call that changed everything. The Kaiser physician's Assistant that sees mom on a regular basis called to tell me that the nurses were worried about her and that they were asking if I would give permission for her to go to the hospital. Permission??? Duh! I have been through this a lot lately, not boring you over and over with another hospital visit. Yesterday was different. I decided to finish up the pot of wool and eat a sandwich before heading down to Marshall hospital because one never knows how long things take. Smart. I waited to talk to the doctor and finally got in to see mom and she looked like death. It scared the snot out of me and I immediatly teared up and told her that I loved her...you just never know, eh? The doctor finally came in, after reading the cat scan and told me that mom had a stroke. Yikes! Her left arm was "flaccid" but her left foot was responsive. Ok, maybe she will snap out of this. We waited to hear that Kaiser was contacted and I went home to wait for the call about where she would go. Somehow, I turned into a big weenie when hearing mom's throat being suctioned out. My fight or flight kicked in, I guess. I signed the papers and got in the car. After dinner I got the call that she was on her way to Roseville and so that was that.
I got a call from a VERY kind doctor who talked to me for over 45 minutes (!), asking lots of questions about my observances of any changes in mom lately. I had to begin the Advance Directive mantra that would be coming out of my mouth for the next 12 hours or more. I felt better because the doctor said that mom said my name. Sweet, maybe it WAS just the bad lighting in the room, as the first doctor had quipped, when I said that mom looked REALLY pale.
I stayed up and watched tv until 10 and then went to pass out in bed. The first call came at Midnight. The night doctor wanted to hear the Advance Directive Mantra for himself. I croaked it out and heard something about mom being non responsive, not knowing her name or my name. Oh oh. 2 am. That is the beginning of the Witching Hours when no call is good. He told me that he had read the new cat scan and that mom had begun a big bleed and that her brain was swelling. He just made me think that this was it. I prayed to god, to my dead relatives, to the angels, to everyone to come down there while I wrapped a white light cocoon around mom and at 4 am, I finally fell asleep. The Call never came and I thought that at least daylight could save me.
We promised to get to the hospital in the morning and so off we went. She was awake and being man handled by the Physical therapist who was doing an evaluation. We waited and I did The Mantra again, emphasizing mom's aversion to a feeding tube, at which point I lost it.
The last piece of the puzzle was the visit from the Neurologist, who, after examining mom, told me that she has had a massive stroke, which has taken all of the feeling from her left side. (her left foot was responsive in the first hospital). He said that the prognosis is not good but the fact that her brain has shrunk (!) gave the swelling some space in her skull. I recited The Mantra again.
So now we wait. They may just release her in a couple of days and take her back to the Convalescent Hospital for Comfort Care.
See why I don't like February? Awww, nuts...there is a little frog croaking outside my office window...all is not lost.
We will see you at Stitches. I may have a big box of Kleenex but I will be there. I can't do one thing other than be by a phone and so there I will be. She does not know me at this point. Rod and I were Mother & Daddy and I guess that is who we are...