Answered prayers.....

I had such a good day today. My demon child co-worker was not at work, woo-hoo. Don't they realize how quiet and smooth everything is when she is not there??????? We went to the hospital tonight to visit Jennifer. I am so ecstatic. She was awake and could understand what we were saying to her. She could make facial expressions when she was asked questions and she could nod her head yes or no. We got her to smile. Many prayers have been answered and continue to be answered. They had her pacemaker on her leg turned down and tomorrow they plan on turning it off to see if she can handle it. They have taken her off her medication to help her heart and she is doing fine. She stayed awake all day today. She would not go to sleep, I guess because she felt she had been out of it for so long she was afraid if she went to sleep she would be out of it again. Right before we left the nurse gave her some morphine for pain and to help her relax and get some rest. I was so happy to see her awake. Thank you Lord. The doctors are say now that it was the medication she was on but they are not sure yet exactly which one it was or if some of the medication reacted to the medicine she was already taking. She is on a blood thinner to make sure she does not get clots in her legs. She is able to move her left leg but not her right leg because the pacemaker is attached to her right leg. She seems to be uncomfortable because she cannot really move around to get a good spot. She was moving her left arm and wrinkling her forehead and I asked her if her arm was bothering her or need to be lifted up. She nodded to me when I asked her about lifting it up so I tried to make her a little more comfortable. She still has a little ways to go but is doing great right now. Brittni is doing fine. She was tired when we seen her in the CCU waiting area. This was her first day out of the hospital so I am sure she has been up all day. The doctors said she suffers from Abdominal migraines. No I have never heard of it either, but apparently a migraine is pain in the nerves. Just like a migraine head ache, these are migraine stomach aches. New one on me. Mom and I are going to do our normal Saturday thing tomorrow. I think we will go to AC Moore tomorrow then have lunch. Then tomorrow afternoon it is back to the lake for the rest of the weekend. I ready for this boat to be broken in so we can actually relax. When you are breaking in a new motor on a jet-ski you have to go no more than 35 miles a hour, which is slow then you move on up the speedometer until you get to the number of "break-in" hours that need to be put on the boat. Of course, all of this was greek to me until I got involved in it with this boat. Well, guess I will get off of here and hit the hay! I am tired.

No change.....

There has been no change in Jennifer today other than Brittni, Chandler and Mitchell were able to talk to her and she was a little less sedated and could nod to them. Then she was sedated again to keep her from becoming agitated. We did not go to the hospital today. I was totally exhausted and had to get some things done around the house. Brittni was discharged today and is with a friend from school and Chandler is with Mom. Mitchell and Jennifer's brother are switching off staying in the room with Jennifer just so there is someone there, just in case she might come to and not see anyone she knows. The doctors said it could take up to 60 hours from the time she collapsed before all the medication she was on is out of her system. That is about 4 and 1/2 days! I think they seem to think that when that gets out of her system she should be on the full road to recovery. Since they cannot find anything else wrong with her it seems it might have been the medication that she was prescribed recently that did all of this.

Vincent and I met Wayne, Tina, Courtney and Lauren at Mythos Greek Restaurant in Greer for dinner tonight. Actually it was a spur of the moment kinda thing. Wayne called to see if we were going to the hospital because he did not know if he was going to make it tonight. I told him that we were not going to night and then I asked them if they had eaten yet and he said no. So we decided to meet there. We had a good time.

Things at work at the same. I think it was yesterday or the day before. I was just standing there working and MINDING MY OWN BUSINESS and something came on radio of the "demon" beside me. Those of you who have kept up with my notorious co-worker know what I am talking about. She said (and keep in mind it is just me and her standing there) out loud, "Thank you Lord, I got the devil right beside me". Now since it was only me and her standing there, who do you think she was talking about?????????????????????????? Yep, that is right ME. Of course, want I should have said was agree with her and say "yes Lord, I got the devil right beside me too". But I didn't because if I had said something she would have just said that she was talking to herself. Which probably is correct since she is schizofrinic anyway. So today I started wearing an earplug in my right ear so I don't have to hear her talking about that devil standing beside her. I hope he does not try to start talking to me!!!!!! Maybe I should go in to work tomorrow with devil horns on my head!!!!!!!!!!! I am LOL right now. She has really lost some of the marbles in her collection!
I decided that I was not going to let her ruin my day so I have gotten to the point of just taking it all in stride and laughing inside at her stupity or craziness, which one I am not sure of!
Well, guess I had better go and get in bed a "little earlier" tonight!

Answers............

Well, I went to the hospital to get some answers.............Jennifer was taken down for a CT scan today, I think they said she had a chest x-ray and tomorrow she is scheduled for an ultrasound to check to make sure she does not have any blood clots. The nurse that came on duty at 7:00 pm was very helpful when we asked questions. I stayed in their with Jennifer while he checked all her vital signs and she was doing good. She did have a temperature of 101 under the arm and he was going to order some tylenol for her. They had increased her sedation with is Propofol, I think, when they took her down for the scan. The nurse decreased it and said that they were going to keep decreasing it to try and wean her off of it. She was breathing some on her own but was still on the respirator. The respiratory therapist came in also and checked her vitals, cleaned the tube, etc. and everything looked good. Another medication she is on is Heparin, not sure about that one, Lidocane, not sure if that is related to the Heparin and she was also given some Morphine today.

The mothering instinct in me wants to just lift her to me and hold her and tell her everything is going to be ok, but I know that I cannot do that. Sometimes I feel so "fake". I know how I have felt in the past with everything that has gone on with Mitchell and Jennifer and I know that I have not been the Christian that I should be. I should have forgave Mitchell for some things he did. Stealing from his own family for his drug addiction, but I did not. There is alot of trust that needs to be made up by him. He has said so many times that he had changed and it never happened. You still have the thoughts that "is he telling us another one or is he for real this time". Jennifer has been through a lot with him and her family. Her mother dying 2 years ago has not been easy for her either.

He says that when Jennifer gets better and Brittni gets better that there are going to be some changes. I told him that it is not going to be a easy road, its going to be hard, it is not going to come to him. They have never really been a family and it is going to take some time to build that up for them.

He just looks at her and then he says "isn't she beautiful, she's my baby". I asked him, "has it taken this to happen for you to see that?" and he told me "no, I have known it all along. She is still as beautiful to me today as she was 21 years ago". I said have you told her that and he said "yes and I tell her I love her and she always says no you don't". And he just chuckled to himself. We were looking at the monitor and watching her blood pressure cuff expanding and it read her bp. He asked me if her bp was good and what is is normally. I told him 120/80. hers was 167/63. I said I am on blood pressure medication and he said I am supposed to be on it, but I don't take it. I have it with me but I just don't take it. I turned to him and said, "do you want to end of like Jennifer" and we looked at her and he said no. And I said then you better start taking care of yourself.

Brittni is doing fine. She is going to be discharged probably Friday. She was working on a little scrapbook for her mom when we left.

We will be going back tomorrow so I will have an update then.................

Jennifer and Brittni

Yesterday we got a call from my baby brother that Jennifer, my sister-in-law was in the hospital due to collapsing and having 2 cardiac arrests. She was on life support in CCU (critical care unit). This was the first time anyone had heard from him in a couple of weeks when Mom had surgery. We found out that Brittni, my niece and Mitch and Jennifer's daughter, had been in the hospital for several days before this happened to Jennifer due to a problem with vomiting and severe stomach pain. We also just found out that Brittni had been having this problem for a couple of years and had been to the ER several times in the last several months. Alot has gone on over the past several years with Mitchell doing some things that he should not have done and he just became distance with the family. We went to the hospital yesterday and stayed there the rest of the day. Jennifer was being sedated heavily due to her becoming agitated when she was not sedated. The nurse said that her heart was so irritated from the cardiac arrests that it was best right now just to let her rest. They could not do any testing until later. At this point, we did and still do not know what is wrong with her. It could be a medication reaction, she had been to the doctor on Monday and they had either started her on a new medication or changed her meds and she had not felt right all day. We still don't know what is wrong with Brittni either. They have run the light down her throat checking for an ulcer and anything else, nothing. The doctor did take 2 biopsies and the results will come later. Today they did an upper GI to check the gall bladder (why are they just now checking the gb?) and some things that cannot be seen with the light. Still nothing. At the writing they were discussing whether to discharge her. Mitchell is handling the situation the best he can right now. He is pulled in 2 directions knowing that Jennifer is critical right now. Brittni is not doing to good emotionally because she seen her mom collapse. The nurses were not getting there fast enough and knowing that there was nothing she could do was not good. Chandler my nephew is doing ok. He knows that there is not much that he can do either. But he did say that if this had to happen to his mom, he was glad that she was at the hospital, because she would not have made it if she had been home and had to wait for EMS provided she could dial 911 since she is home by herself. When there is a critical situation like this, I had found out just yesterday how confusing the medical staff can be. One minute they tell you that you cannot talk to or touch Jennifer, no more than 2 people in the room, then the next minute they tell Mitch he can kiss her and talk to her and they let 3 people in the room. None of them can tell you anything, and you just walk around like you are in some kind of a fog. The mother is me wants to scream out, WE WANT AND NEED SOME ANSWERS. How long can she stay like that? What is going to happen next, what kind of test are you running on her. Then the nurses tell you, (if you are not the wife or husband) "we cannot tell you anything, you have to ask the spouse), but then turn around and tell you some information and you are sitting there thinking in your mind, "are you suppose to be telling me this? I'm glad you are but you are all so contradicting." I am getting ready to head to the hospital now and try to get some kind of answers. It is the mother in me I guess. But even if it is not good news I NEED TO KNOW! Let's see how it goes................

Monday, Monday

First of the week. It is always so hard to get back in the swing of things after such a nice weekend. And today was just as nice. My demon-child co-worker tried to get me in trouble today. Now doesn't that sound so elementary? It is but that is the way some people are. It ended up backfiring in her face so I felt pretty good about that. I know that is not good to feel good about that but it is about time my supervisor stood up to her. I had lunch with Mom today. We ate at the Pizza House where we usually go if we are both in Travelers Rest and since I work in TR and she lives in TR it works out perfectly! I only get 35 minutes, so it almost is not like having lunch at all but being in a rat race, hurry to get there, hurry to eat and hurry to get back, but I got to spend some time with Mom and I enjoyed it even if it was for just a short time. Getting ready to take that jet-ski back to the lake as soon as Vincent gets here. He found the problem so we have to go back and try again what we tried to do Saturday. (see previous post). Well, guess I had better get off of here. Nothing much to say today!

Happy Sunday!

How nice it wake up to a nice cool morning after all that hot, muggy, humid weather we have been having. We are heading back out to the lake. Had to come home last night to take care of the animals (the drawback of having them) so we could not stay the night. The Rosenfelds' boat is back in our back yard waiting to head back to the shop tomorrow morning. It has to be put on a computer at a sea-doo dealership which will take it out of "limp" mode which is a safe mode to protect the engine when things are not quite kosher and in this case Lance put too much oil in it when they were putting it back together. Everyone seems to think that this jet-ski has some sort of hex on it. Of course, I don't believe in that. I think it is just a tempermental piece of equipment that has had a run of bad motors on several persons doings before Vincent got a hold of it. Not to mention the company who supplies the motors has a motor-put-together-er- who did not put oil in a certain part of the motor and it cannot function without it.

But we had out reliable jet-ski so we rode it. We left it down there on the boat lift at the Rosenfelds dock so we did not have to tow it back again today.

Yesterday Mom, Alpha and myself went to the Heirloom's Rubber Stamp and Paper Festival held at the Carolina First Center (formerly the Palmetto Expo Center). We had a really great time, I think Alpha spent the most money out of all three of us. I purchased 3 stamps, 2 of which were snowmen stamps, which I love. (Snowmen, hmmmm) a "Merry Christmas" stamp and a set of Heidi Swapp "credit card" embellishments. Don't ask me why they call them credit card embellishments, they are not the same size as credit cards and some are not even shaped like credit cards.....go figure. Mom did well walking around so much after her surgery 2 weeks ago. We kept asking her if she was ok. The only problem she had was when we went to Red Lobster to eat lunch (which is totally much cheaper than at dinner time) and she had a problem sitting in the booth for so long. She really needs to be sitting in a regular chair. I am sure she went home and took a nap.

I talked to my "fireman" brother Wayne. He works for Parker Fire District in Greenville. He is a Lt. now, promoted about a month or so ago. He loves fighting fires, it takes special men and women to do that sort of thing. He has gotten him a new cocker spaniel puppy, Harley. He had a cocker spaniel named Freckles which Wayne totally adored and she was run over a while back and he has now got her replacement (if you can call it that).

Haven't talked to my sister in a while. I keep tabs on her. She has a new job at Gateway Elementary where Allyssa goes. She was the computer lab teacher but was "promoted" to SASI clerk this year which is requiring more work than the computer lab, but both of their kids are into sports, track, basketball, high school footballs games, and just plain out high school stuff she has to do. She does live close by, but we hardly see each other. They were out of town this weekend for a sport related event.

Allyssa went to her Dad's house this weekend so Thursday was the last time we seen her and Dakota. Nick's girlfriend babysits them during the week now so that they are not in a nursery and daycare. Which is great that they get to be at home more.

Well, gotta go so I can get ready to get our of here.

Finally we have rain.....

No playing outside for this little guy today. Of course, this pic was taken in May when he was 3 months old and now he is 6 months old and 3 times, at least, this size. It has been raining pretty much non-stop since 5:00 p.m. today. Woo-Hoo, it is so nice to see moisture coming from the sky and I am sure all the trees, grass, flowers, shubbery, etc. are thanking God right now as I have been all afternoon. It is suppose to be sunny the rest of the weekend so it won't foil anyone's plans, but is is sooo nice to see it coming down.

Not much going on today except of course work and the usual elementary-behavior by some grown adults that you have everywhere. It gets so tiring, you would think these guys would outgrow it sometime in their lives.

Mom and I are going to the "rubber stamp convention" at the former Palmetto Expo Center tomorrow. Last year it was not as good as it was the previous year so I am anxious to see if there have been any changes to make it better. We usually buy 1 or 2 stamps and maybe a little something that might strike our fancy. Usually there are so many stamps that I get overwhelmed and come out with maybe 1 stamp. It is getting close to the holidays so I have to put on my thinking cap for my small amount of christmas cards I give to our immediate families.

We are going to be at the lake for most of the weekend starting tomorrow afternoon. Going to the Rosenfelds to break in their boat and they are all excited to get it back. I am riding mine and Vincent and the Rosenfelds are taking turns riding theirs to get the new motor "broken in".

Our other friends that we were with last weekend are at Springfield campsite at Lake Hartwell. We are going to be at Lake Keowee which if I am not mistaken is separated by the dam, Oconee County and Anderson County are in their close and Lake Keowee goes all the way up north. Not too much on the geography. I like Keowee a whole lot better, cleaner to me although it is a lot more crowded.

Had to recolor my hair tonight to cover up the gray. The things we have to deal with when getting older. Why can't we just keep out 20 year old bodies, minds, beautiful hair well up until we leave this world. Can you imagine everyone having their 20 year old bodies. I am sitting here picturing all of us going about our daily doings and looking good doing it!!!!!!!! LOL<>

Later...............

Well, guess I had better get off of here.