Update on My Mom

Update on My Mom

The Tuesday before St. Patrick's Day I was volunteering in Bryn and Elle's classroom when I got a phone call from my mom which I couldn't answer, then a phone call from my sister Kelley that I couldn't answer, and then a frantic text from Kelley asking me to call her immediately and that it was an emergency. I was right in the middle of leading a small group outside the library with a bunch of kids from Bryn and Elle's class. It turned out that my Mom was needing to go to the ER immediately with potential heart issues. She had just been seen at her clinic and was told to go immediately to the ER. She refused to go to the hospital in her little town, didn't want to be seen in Coeur d' Alene, and was wanting to go to Sacred Heart, a hospital here in Spokane, that has a fantastic heart institute. It was where Tyler went with his heart issues.

My mom had been telling us for the past week that she was sick. She thought it was a sinus infection or the flu. I had just talked to her just the day before I got the call from Kelley and she said that she was feeling really run down, not feeling any better at all, super dizzy, and feeling really short of breath. She told me that she was short of breath just talking to me on the phone. I told her that shortness of breath was weird and that it could be heart related and that I wouldn't mess around with that. I told her to get into one of her clinics and get checked out ASAP. She is a health care CEO and has multiple health clinics and all kinds of doctors at her fingertips. But she is a nurse and always thinks that she knows best and I really doubted that she would go to the doctor. That day she was heading in to work and could barely make it across the parking lot and into her office. When she got checked out she had an erratic EKG and still had the shortness of breath. Also her blood pressure was bottoming out. That is weird because she normally has high blood pressure and has been on bp medication for the last several years. She wasn't allowed to drive herself anywhere. She called me and then Kelley from her clinic. One of her staff drove her home and then she needed one of us to drive her to Spokane. Sometimes it really sucks that she lives an hour and a half away.

Kelley was going to go and get her but she had used the van pool to get to work and so Tyler left his office and hurried over to pick up Kelley from her work and then took her to get her car while I was trying to extricate myself from my group of kids I was helping and from Bryn and Elle's classroom without freaking them out. Kelley was able to get to my mom in record time. She picked her up, packed her an overnight bag, and loaded up her enormous dog Maggie Mae since we didn't know what was going on or if she would be admitted. They dropped off the dog and headed to the hospital where they sat for an hour and a half in the ER waiting room. Stacey and I both got there and spent that hour and a half waiting with them. Tyler left work early and ran carpool for all our kids, provided pizza and entertainment, and tucked them all into bed.

When she was admitted my mom's EKG and BP were looking slightly better. She had a bunch of blood tests run and one came back positive for potential blood clots. She ended up having a chest xray and a CT scan where they found numerous blood clots in both lungs. She had four pretty large ones and then her lungs were filled with tons of micro clots. My mom had some tenderness in one of her calves and remembered having what she thought was a horrible charlie horse in it one night prior to the onset of all her many symptoms. The doctors think that she had a blood clot in her calf that broke up into several larger clots and flicked off into all those micro clots.

She was on an IV and was immediately given a Lovenox shot and started on Coumadin. She didn't stay in the hospital very long...she checked out the next afternoon...which was worrying because she is an terrible patient!! She flat out refused to stay with either me, Stacey, or Kelley. She was bound and determined to go home. The doctors said that she should be fine being on her own as long as she got up and moved around every two hours, took her shots twice daily, and went to her Coumadin clinic appointments daily, She latched onto that information and refused to stay with any of us. We thought that was a huge mistake and still do. Tyler and I drove her and her beast of a dog back home, got her settled, picked up her prescriptions, bought groceries for her, and set her up with several days worth of meals. Tyler lent his diabetic expertise about giving yourself shots in the stomach. We were there for several hours and then VERY RELUCTANTLY left. I don't think my mom really thought about what a toll it was going to take on her. She had a pretty miserable week and needed more help than she thought she would. Stacey ended up going to her house and staying with her for a couple of days and she still was pretty out of commission. She is used to bouncing back and charging forward and her body flat out refused to allow her too. I think she was surprised to see how much help she actually needed. Kelley and I were in the line up to each take a day with her but then we got some snowy weather and she didn't want anyone driving up. She ended up getting off of the Lovenox shots after about five days but she still has to be on heavy doses of Coumadin for 6 months to a year and she is still attending her Coumadin clinic daily. After a few months they will test her to see if she has some kind of blood clotting disorder and maybe that was why she formed a clot. No one knows why at this point. I hope not because that is usually hereditary and so we were told, as her children, to take a baby aspirin a day (I already have for years) particularly before flying. If we do fly or go on a long road trip we need to make sure that we get up and walk around every two hours etc. After being home for a week my mom went into her office to do payroll and had to face facts that it was going to take quite awhile to get back to feeling normal. She came out to the lake last Saturday for our family's Easter celebration but she still was feeling terrible and  just had to take it easy and allow me and my sisters to do all the work. She doesn't enjoy not being in charge and wasn't a happy camper. But I thought she looked a hundred times better than she did the week before. She is back to work this week but not working a full day most days...at least I hope.

It has been quite a wake up call to her and to all of us. This coming on the heels of her still dealing with complications from breaking her arm last summer...surgery...and still going to physical therapy for that. It has not been a fun season for her and I know that she gets really annoyed dealing with me and my sisters about her health concerns and us voicing our many opinions.  But what can you do?! It's definitely hard. I am happy to say that she is continuing to improve and I hope that her road to recovery continues to go smoothly.