Hell of a week folks, hell of a WEEK.

This week has been a rollercoaster. The Kingda Ka, if you will. Wild start to the week last week. Tuesday we prepped for our usual trek back to the city except I woke up to an insane migraine so Alex got to accompany Mom on this Tuesday visit into the city.

At the visit they did labs as normal and took out her staples, YAY! Three weeks of metal jabbing into mom’s skin was starting to show more damage than it was worth keeping them in so they decided it was better to take them out. They all came out flawlessly with minimal “ooziness” and Mom was a champ during it.

Mom got to come home from the city, feeling ~ok~ not bad, but certainly not great. I left for a doctor’s appointment at 3 and all seemed ok in the world. WRONG. The migraine should have been the omen of my day to not move forward with any other doctor’s appointments. My 3pm put me in a world of hurt after I ended up having an extreme adverse reaction to a procedure and spent the next 12 hours vomiting until I eventually went to the ER.

Ryan was at work and all I could think about on the way home from my appointment was how badly I needed my mom and how I couldn’t be alone. I knew that if I went home, Goose and Mav would be of literally no help.. so I had Maria drop me off in good old Boonton.

Guess who spent the next twelve hours taking care of me? Mom. Like I’m not kidding about taking care of me. I was having such bad chills and sweats from being so sick that I sweat through three pairs of pajamas, I could barely stay conscious at some points because I was in so much pain and so nauseous and she made sure I was ok, talked me off the ledge, and told me it would all be alright.

She was in and out of the kitchen all day and night, tucked me into her bed until she knew I had to go to the hospital and she watched me for twelve hours straight. We needed that.

I sat in the ER at 9am, thinking about the whole night over again and what I could remember. Her rubbing my back as I cried, rubbing my leg when I was sick, making sure I had an ice chip since I couldn’t keep any liquid down, me looking over at one point and her being asleep with her arms resting on my legs, making sure I knew she was there. Four weeks post op tomorrow and nothing has stopped her from becoming the Mom, the Beth we all know and love. She has been fighting to come back out of this fog for a few years now and she is soooo ready mentally.

Physically, we are seriously working on that aspect.

With major surgery like this comes loss of appetite, loss of muscle, and many other side effects that affect your body’s composition. Mom has lost 20 lbs since being discharged, some has been water weight, yes, but her only job, again, is to eat.

Boost drinks, the nasty strawberry ones, are what she is currently into right now but that changes by the day. Her sense of taste is all sorts of out of whack and she doesn’t enjoy much of anything currently.

We’re in the part of Kingda Ka where you’re going up the first pole and twisting around it. This is the part where I tell you that the wrist pain was… A blood clot! Started up on eliquis and we are already significantly decreased in pain and we are able to use the wrist again with minimal wincing. The doppler was all hell to go throw and it was sad to watch while Mom sobbed through it because of the pain but they were able to see the clot and now we are back on track.

So guys, we’re at the top of the hill now ready for the free fall twist down?

Mom’s incision opened!!!!!

Yay, Saturday night while I’m in upstate NY with no service I get a picture from Al when I finally get service again of what looks like a little ugly man making a little ugly face with his mouth open a little tiny bit…

No it’s mom’s incision. So Ry and I made the decision to leave early Sunday and see what was going on back in NJ and sure enough we had an opening about 2″ large.

Now this is the part I love about Mt.Sinai. I called them, left a message with the on call doctor, and within 10 minutes I always get a call back. This time, it was less than that. We communicated about what was going on. I sent her pictures. We spoke with the surgeon and they were confident enough I could keep it clean and covered until the following day, so that’s what we did.

Which brings us to today. Up and at ’em, back into the city but Mom can’t walk?

OK what’s going on. This is real life thoughts this morning when I got to the house and Mom was looking her most frail and fragile form yet. Pain in her legs making it almost unbearable to walk and touching her makes the pain worse. It’s a lose lose for mom, for us, for everyone at this moment.

We finally were able to get to the car, probably the most uncomfortable car ride of her life and were seen by the surgeon as soon as we walked in. They removed a small clot in her incision wound and then packed it with gauze, pressure wrapped her up and called it a day today. We come in twice a week and we will be replacing it every time she showers, so this thing should be well on it’s way to healing.

We addressed the other issues and did our routine blood work today instead of having to come back tomorrow, woo! Once we talked about the leg pain, they immediately sent us down to radiology for bilateral leg ultrasounds to make sure there was no clots in her legs after the clot was found in her wrist.

As I write this tonight, no clots were found but we’re unsure about the pain at this moment. We were almost hoping we had a straight answer, like the wrist. Josan and I chat on the phone every tues and thurs after labs come back and talk about her meds planning moving forward for the next few days.

It’s kind of funny, the weeks are flying by and it doesn’t feel like time has moved at all. Today Ry and I talked about how we’ll take any temperature at this point outside as long as it doesn’t rain. We just need some to be able to spend time outside everyday to clear your head after all the chit chat all day.

Do that for yourself.

OoooOOo I just realized for the next post….

heheh

xoxo

nell