Tales of the Geeky Vixen

Listening: "Tear Down The House", Avett Bros., The Second Gleam

Reading: Killing Yourself to Live, Chuck Klosterman

Watching: Spaced

I honestly don't know where to start, dear readers. My world is in such a different place than it was when last I posted. So that's where I shall start.

Two days after my last post, we took my mom out for sushi for her birthday. It was such a wonderful night; we laughed so hard, and when my mom couldn't eat some of her sushi, we were joking about trying to kill her with sushi on her birthday. She said that was the most fun she could have had on her birthday.

The rest of the week played out like normal. On Saturday we joined our friends Brett and Kelly at Brett's parents' house to celebrate his birthday. We ate way too much and were playing board games when we noticed missed calls on our cell phones. My dad had called both of our phones. Normally if he needed me, he would leave a message. Brad called him back, and immediately he handed the phone to me. I will never forget the tone and shaking in his voice when he said these words to me, "Kiddo, we're at the hospital. Your mama's had a stroke." With those words hanging in the air, he told me where they were and what I needed to do. We headed straight there, and with the guilt of knowing he had been calling for a while before we reached him, I broke down in the car. I was terrified. Just a couple of days before, we were laughing outside Barnes and Noble. Now, at 11:00 on Saturday night, we're rushing to the Med Center.

By the time we got there, she had been moved to a room. My dad went to pick up some things at home, and we stayed with her. It was a mild stroke, so she was awake and aware. Her left side wasn't moving too well, and her blood pressure was almost fatally high. I tried not to show my fear as I held her hand, helping her answer questions the nurse had to ask for admission. After a couple of hours, we drove home. I tried to sleep in my bed that night, but I wound up going to the couch at 5 a.m. after 2 hours of tossing and turning. With my cell phone in hand, I curled up and watched 80s videos on Vh1 Classic because they made me think of a time when I truly felt safe.

Over the next couple of days, we learned that the stroke occurred in her brain stem. I sat and read by her side while she slept and met the doctors, nurses, and physical and speech therapists who came in at all times to check this and that. She went through a battery of tests to assess the damage that had been done and to determine what to do next.

I went to the hospital every day that week, to see my mom, and to give my dad a chance to get out for a little while. As much as I worried about my mom, I was worried about my dad too. It's always been just the 3 of us, so I had to make sure we were all okay. We played cards, and did things for my mom that she did for me when I was a baby. It was the hardest week of my life. My dad and I had a lot of discussions about what we needed to do, and how this was going to change our lives for a while, maybe forever. We had to make a big discussion about going from the hospital to a rehabilitation hospital. At first, my mom kept saying, "If I could just go home, I know I'd get better." The doctors kept trying to tell her that she was a really good candidate for therapy, and how hard it would be to progress quickly if she did it at home. Finally we had to have a heart to heart with my mom, and I asked her to weigh the pros and cons with me, and told her how I felt and why. When it came time to make the big decision, she made the choice to go to rehab. We packed up and moved her to Quillen Rehab Hospital. I got to ride in the ambulance with her. This was on Thursday.

Friday morning she began her assessment for therapy. I helped her with exercises her speech therapist gave me (after I told the ST I studied linguistics in college). We had to go to lunch with the speech therapist to make sure my mom was swallowing her food properly. We asked the physical and occupational therapists what we could do to help her when she wasn't in sessions. That night I went home, confident that things were on the upswing.

Saturday at noon my dad called, asking if I was planning on coming by, and if I could bring him lunch. He said they were at North Side (the hospital by the rehab center). My mom was having more tests done and being put on oxygen. At the time we thought she was having a reaction to one of her medications. After we ate, we bought an Uglydoll for my mom to go with the Converse sneakers I had bought and embroidered for her. When we got there, she looked so much weaker, and it scared me to see her on oxygen. Eventually one of the doctors freaked and made the decision to send her back to the med center for more tests, but no one would tell us why. Once again I rode in the ambulance back to the hospital. When we got to the ER, they wouldn't let me go in with her. I eventually got shuffled out into the hall with my dad and Brad. My dad, after a couple of minutes, told the people at the desk we were going in, like it or not. We were scared that something had happened that we needed to know about.

We spent 5 hours in the ER with no explanation. The doctor who called to bring her over was off duty and could not be reached, and the ER doc wasn't going to charge us for an ER visit when it was another doctor who called us over. In the curtain next to us, there was a guy who got shot in the leg by his sister's boyfriend, or his girlfriend's brother, or something, which caused us to giggle inappropriately, especially my mom (who at this point has no volume control, so we're in hysterics trying to keep her quiet). Finally a doctor came to tell us that they're admitting her back to the hospital. Two hours pass before she gets a room, enough time for my dad to go back and get her stuff and go raise some hell about the absentee doctor. That night Brad and I went with her to her room, and she was in really good spirits, laughing and showing us how much she could move her left hand.

On Sunday she moved to the Stroke Center floor, because the neurologist determined that she had another stroke. This time the stroke affected movement on her right side, but not as severely as her left side. She had to go for more tests, another MRI and a CT scan. I sat with my dad while we waited for her to finish her MRI, and we talked about a lot of things, mostly about how we were unsure of what the future holds. 

I reluctantly went back to work on Monday, but all I could think about was my mom. I kept my cell phone on my desk, just in case my dad needed to call me. As soon as work was over I headed to the hospital. The neurologist had given some good news and some potentially bad news. She had had another stroke (which we knew), and it was in the same place as her other stroke (her brain stem), but on the right side. The good news was that she's very lucky because there wasn't a lot of damage. Then he told my parents that he had to figure out whether it was a blood clot because that meant they were at a crossroads. If it was a blood clot, they could do nothing more for her at the Med Center, and she would have to be transported either to Vanderbilt or a hospital in Virginia. If not, then she would be cleared to go to rehab. So we had to wait for the results. It was a very long night.

The next morning the neurologist brought good news--it wasn't a blood clot. They began getting my mom ready to go back to rehab to begin physical, occupational, and speech therapy. Since we had been there before, we knew what to expect. Since it was the week of July 4, she didn't get to do a full week of therapy, but she at least got a good start. Luckily she got to have the same physical and occupational therapists (Candace and Cara). She had to go for a swallow test to determine how much liquid was going to the right place and how much she was aspirating, since that was a potential risk for stroke patients. She wound up having to have thickened liquids, which were the grossest things I had ever encountered. The thickening powder smelled horrible, and having to drink honey thick liquids doesn't really quench your thirst. So she had to have an IV, but she really didn't mind it because she realized it would help her get better.

We continued to visit her and my dad (who luckily got to be her roommate at Quillen) most every night. Quillen is a very positive environment, and I really was impressed with the staff. Since I was there so much, I got to know most of the nurses who came in at night. Everyone loved my mom and dad (which, really, I can't say I blame them). Mama's first full week of therapy was really tough, but she was determined. Honestly, from the beginning she told everyone she encountered that she would walk, and she told her therapists she was going to do everything they threw at her because she knew that was the only way to get better. 

As she progressed in therapy, she got excited when she had some new trick to show me at night. When they began to walk with her, with some machine that she called Big Blue, she would tell me how far she walked. I could really tell that this was good for her. She liked her therapists, for the most part, and she was in really good spirits most days. There was one day that she got really frustrated when she couldn't do something Candace asked her to do, and she broke down. That night I told her that it was perfectly normal, that there are good days and bad days, and this was one of the bad ones. 

The next day after that we went to see the Avett Brothers in concert. One song in particular, "Die Die Die" makes me think of my mom, just for the line "She puts her hands against the life she had/Living with ignorance, blissful and sad". I broke down and cried through the first 3 songs. It was weird, but it was like every lyric made me think of my mom. With the exception of the first night, I really hadn't thought about myself in all this--how it was taking a toll on me. The gravity of the situation hit me all at once. But then I thought about how far we had progressed, and I felt much better. I was able to enjoy the rest of the show and the evening. On Sunday I went to see my mom and we played Pirates of the Caribbean Life, which I won, and it was like when I was a kid and we played board games. I realized how lucky I am to have the parents I have.

The last couple of weeks were about the same--therapy for my mom and my going to visit her. That is, until I caught the cold that wouldn't die. I called it the "I Told You So" cold because Brad kept telling me that I needed to make sure I was taking care of myself instead of running myself ragged. Sure enough, I didn't, and I got sick. This cold, which I still have remnants of, was fierce. I had to stay away from my mom (and pretty much everyone) for an entire week. Finally, at the end of last week, I was well enough to go see her. She had good news--her going home was on the horizon!

This week was Employee Appreciation Week at work, so I've been really busy with that. My mom's been really busy with her last week of therapy. See, she exceeded expectations, so at first they were going to extend her stay a week (until 8/8) to get her that much farther along with walking. Then she exceeded their expectations so much that she progressed to that point, and still got to leave a week early. She's walking with a walker, and she has all of her movement back in her right side. She still has a little way to go with her left hand, but it's really close. And her speech and swallowing are much improved. As I write this, I'm waiting for a call from my dad telling me that they've made it home. I couldn't be more excited for both of them, since neither has been home since this happened. I know it's going to be hard at first, but I know it's a welcomed difficulty.

I truly meant to write about this before now, but I've been so far in it, it was difficult to distance myself enough to write about it. It truly was the scariest thing I've ever been through, especially when I read the stats about survival rates for patients whose strokes were in the brain stem. I'm so thankful that things have played out the way they have. Along the way I've learned a lot, and I've met some really cool people. I've become a lot closer with my parents (which I didn't think was possible, considering how close we already were). I want to send a thank you note to every nurse who was cool and made my mom laugh (especially Kasey and Tim, who loves Wonder Woman as much as I do), and to her therapists. 

Through this whole thing, my mom has been really positive. She told everyone she was going to walk, and she is. She realizes how lucky she is, and she's never lost sight of what's important. I admire all she's been through, all we've been through as a family. I'm thankful that I can report good news, that things are on the way to getting back to normal. 

So the moral of the story is, make every day special, and tell those people you love that you love them. Do whatever you can to be happy. If there's something you want to do or something you want, do it or get it. As my mom told me a couple of weeks ago, there's no reason you shouldn't have something you want. Life's too short.