Saturna

the week or so leading up to thanksgiving is a sensitive one, particularly for my mother. my grampa jim, her dad, died on november 17th fifteen years ago. my gramma kelly died november 21st, four years ago. and five years ago yesterday - the day after thanksgiving, 2001, my mother had her triple bypass and mitralvalve replacement, after having lived with a blown out heart for a week and one day.

this year, in the course of the past week and a couple of days, my mother first cut her foot open at 5am getting up to get some ice out of her freezer. my mother's blood is often very thin - the kind of thin where doctors want you to stay still on a couch, not moving, not doing much of anything. so cuts and bumps and bruises are dangerous for her. a trip the minor med last saturday showed that her foot was ok, she had managed to get the cut to close up on her own.

then three days ago, again at 5am, my mom was again getting up to get some ice out of her freezer and tripped on a rolled up rug that was out of place, fell and bruised up the entire right side of her body, including her right eye. huge bruises on her thigh, elbow, upper arm, and a big fat black eye. were it not for the fact that she lives by herself i would be wondering who was hitting her. she called her doctor and let him know this happened, then rested for the coming holiday.

come thanksgiving and we all usually meet her at Sharon, jason's mom's house. she took a little while to get there, and by the time she arrived i was in the dining room eating. i did not see her come in, but i heard a commotion and a collective gasp, looked into the kitchen, and saw blood sprayed all over the floor. turns out she came in and gave Sharon a hug, and Sharons rottweiler attacked my mom, clamping down on her right wrist. she had a few puncture wounds that took about thirty minutes to start clotting. she was very groggy from her medicines and shock, so we took her home and got her setup before we went to our other visits.

after the rest of thanksgiving, some of which was extremely stressful and sad and hurtful and angering to me, we got home at about 9 or something. i got up and was cleaning a house by 8am yesterday, then went to my second gig. before i was unloaded, my aunt called me to say that she had mom at the minor med as her arm was swollen. we checked to make sure the dog had his shots (he did, thank maude) and then i called in, got jah isaac and jason sorted, then went to see my mom. she was still very groggy, slurred speech, loss of balance, unable to find words, etc, etc. i mentioned these things to the doctor and explained the wednesday morning fall, and the fact that she is on three blood thinners for her titanium valve.

at this point the doctor suggested going directly to the ER for a CT scan of her head to make sure there was no internal bleeding. i knew that is what he would say and had already arranged for this contingency, because mom would not have just wanted to hear it from me. so we went to the ER, on the day after thanksgiving. it was crazy in there, to be sure. who needs a book in that place - you can just watch the people. particularly entertaining was the woman who was loudly performing a laying on of the hands for a young girl who was having an extremely painful sickle cell attack.

back to the point. we waited something like three or four hours. it did not feel like very long to me at all. i associate good things with that particular hospital because they saved my mom's life five years ago to that very day. i was glad we were there in case she decided to stroke out on me. we finally got her triaged and they took her immediately back.

they gave her xrays of her arm and head, and a head CT, and bloodwork, all of which came back normal. they also gave her IV antibiotics for her dog bite and then ordered a day of bedrest. i brought her home with me last night after much convincing, and she admitted this morning that she was glad she stayed here last night.

she goes back to the doctor monday and we are going to push for an entire neuro workup on her. she has had some dizziness issues for a few months and they were talking about doing that anyway, but her extreme reaction to a small dosage of narcotic analgesic concerns me, when i know she has always had a very high tolerance for those things. so mom is ok, but still needs to be thoroughly checked out by a specialist.

i am ok, i am very glad i would be there for my mom, and that i had the support and help of jason and jason's grandmother betty, and drew, who helped with transport - so i could know that jah isaac was well covered while i did all of this. now i think i need to sleep for a few days.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 25th, 2006 at 12:19 pm and is filed under Family, Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.