Speaking of Moms..
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 4:29 pm
..mine is not doing well. She was taken to the hospital a couple of days ago because she had caught a cold and her coughing kept her from sleeping. She has bronchitis and the problem is that, because of her muscular dystrophy, her lungs are too weak to cough up all the phlegm in them. She had gotten better enough that they took her off oxygen yesterday and were going to send her home last night. My brother was skeptical and asked if it wouldn't be better to keep her one more night to make sure she could handle breathing on her own. Good thing..she had major problems this morning and we probably would've lost her if she had been at home. She got pretty scared, but they pumped her with stuff to make her breathing easier and some anti-anxiety meds to calm her down, and she overcame the immediate crisis.
Still, the prognosis is not so good. There is a good chance that she will not overcome this. They are hoping that the antibiotics they are pumping into her will get the crud out of her system and will get her back to where she was before. Unfortunately she is pretty tired and I don't know how much fight she has in her. The only other thing they can do is put a tube down her throat and put her on a ventilator, and assuming that gets her back on track, follow up with a tracheotomy, which means she will have to be plugged into something half the time. Mom, in typical stubborn Mom fashion, has adamantly refused this scenario. She is 100% in possession of her faculties, so she's fully aware of the implications of her decision. At the back of my mind, I know I am looking at a preview of my future. I also know I will never handle similar circumstances with anything remotely close to approaching the grace she has shown and continues to show.
The doctors say that she is "Right at the fork in the road" at this point..it could go either way, but there is a better than even chance she will not leave the hospital. We are hoping for the best but steeling ourselves for the worst.
My brother and his wife are staying with Mom at the hospital right now and were already told they could spend the night if they wanted to. I came home to hold down the fort and take calls for updates, etc. We are getting buried in what was originally s'posed to be 6 inches but now updated to a projected tally of up to 16 inches of crappy white stuff. Nice timing, Mother Nature.
Mom is the glue in our family, as most moms are. Please keep her in your prayers if you would.
I'm gonna go play LS and futz around the Internet a while. Gotta keep my mind busy.
Still, the prognosis is not so good. There is a good chance that she will not overcome this. They are hoping that the antibiotics they are pumping into her will get the crud out of her system and will get her back to where she was before. Unfortunately she is pretty tired and I don't know how much fight she has in her. The only other thing they can do is put a tube down her throat and put her on a ventilator, and assuming that gets her back on track, follow up with a tracheotomy, which means she will have to be plugged into something half the time. Mom, in typical stubborn Mom fashion, has adamantly refused this scenario. She is 100% in possession of her faculties, so she's fully aware of the implications of her decision. At the back of my mind, I know I am looking at a preview of my future. I also know I will never handle similar circumstances with anything remotely close to approaching the grace she has shown and continues to show.
The doctors say that she is "Right at the fork in the road" at this point..it could go either way, but there is a better than even chance she will not leave the hospital. We are hoping for the best but steeling ourselves for the worst.
My brother and his wife are staying with Mom at the hospital right now and were already told they could spend the night if they wanted to. I came home to hold down the fort and take calls for updates, etc. We are getting buried in what was originally s'posed to be 6 inches but now updated to a projected tally of up to 16 inches of crappy white stuff. Nice timing, Mother Nature.
Mom is the glue in our family, as most moms are. Please keep her in your prayers if you would.
I'm gonna go play LS and futz around the Internet a while. Gotta keep my mind busy.
