Baby...it's cold outside...

Well, it is cold to me. It was 61 degrees and breezy when we came in from dinner and to me it was cold. Maybe it was because I have been cold all day at work. But it is suppose to be in the 40's tonight and that is brrrrrrrr to me.

I have not been on here lately as you can tell. I have had things going on, running out of time at night, spending most of the nights with Vincent watching movies, he is a real movie buff and that is about the only time we get to spend together and we don't even have kids in the house anymore! Trying to get this estrogen patch dosage correct, pain in the neck, I tell ya! I feel great the first couple of days and then on the day before or sometimes the day that I am scheduled to change it, I start feeling bad, plain out ole' bad, not wanting to do anything, wanting to strangle the anti-christ co-worker beside me, (more often than not!), just wanting to sit and DO NOTHING, NOT A THING! Have you realized that the word nothing looks almost like NOT A THING. Oh well, I am getting off on another trail......

We have been going to the lake every Sunday (no haven't been to church and I know that is bad) for the past 4 weeks. Breaking in motors on 2 jetskis Vincent had to replace for the same customer. It has been really nice at the lake though, no rain any day that we were there. My brother Wayne and his wife and daughters went 2 weeks ago with us and Natasha, Randy, Allyssa and Dakota went this past Sunday with us. We had a great time. It gets boring sometimes going by yourself.

The pictures are from this past Sunday's trip. Allyssa always has a good time at the lake, she LOVES the water and from the looks of Dakota, the one where she is asleep, she does too. This picture of Dakota was taken after her first ride on a sea-doo. She loved it until the humming of the motor and watching the water go by put her to sleep. Yes she actually went to sleep while I was operating the sea-doo. She and I were on one, Vincent and Allyssa were on ours and Randy and Natasha was on one.

Today the little monkey turned 2 years old. And she is really in the terrible twos! "No" to everything. Ignoring you when you are talking to her, throwing toys, running from you, you name it and she is doing it! But she is a baby doll!

Tomorrow is my sister-in-law Tina's birthday. We are going out to eat somewhere actually to finalize the beach trip for next weekend and to celebrate her birthday in a quiet sort of way! She has never been one to like the hoop-la of birthdays, she don't like her picture taken and she don't like attention drawn to her. Kinda like me in a way!

Anyway, it is 10:52 pm WAY, WAY past my bedtime so off to sleeptown I go.......Sweet dreams!

Update on Jennifer...

We went to see Jennifer last night. She was sitting up a little bit and actually had her voice back. She still have the feeding tube which they were taking out today and the temporary pacemaker on her leg which was turned off. The report right now is that she may be going home with a permanent pacemaker more as a precaution. She is doing really good and as soon as they take the pacemaker off her leg will be up and starting to walk in about 6-8 hours. They are saying that there were 2 medications that she was taking that reacted to other medications that she was on. She is still in CCU right now.

I am picking up Allyssa and Dakota tomorrow for the afternoon. It has been a couple of weeks since we have had them. Nick's girlfriend, Ashley, babysits them now so I am not getting them as often. That is good for me because it was too much to watch them both nearly every afternoon, but on the other hand I miss them so much. I don't feel like I am in touch with Allyssa and her school work and Dakota and her little musings that I usually get to see.

Mom and Dad are off to the beach tomorrow. Yes I am very jealous! I have not been able to go to the beach this year and I miss it. But Mom needs to get away and relax for a while.

Natasha is progressing along with her pregnancy. She is out of work the rest of the week per doctor's orders.

Nick is doing the usual working thing like the rest of us. I had a couple of days break from demon child co-worker. She came back today.

Well, guess I had better go and get ready for another day of work!

Spur of the Moment changes....

The past couple of days has been all about spur of the moment changes. Since Monday morning when we, (as in Mom, Dad and all of us siblings and spouses and children, except Mitchell and his family, of course) have found out about Brittni being in the hospital and then Jennifer collapsing while staying with Brittni, we have been all about living in the moment. We have lived this week nearly around Brittni and Jennifer. The very people that Mitchell has kept in the dark about so much the past couple of years have been the ones there for him and his family now. A lot of it is Mitchell's fault, heck 99% of it is his fault. We all have tried in the past to keep in touch with him and his family, but either the phone calls going unanswered or not acknowledged or the fact that he did not want us to know much about what was going on in his family life. He has probably lived most of his life based on lie after lie that he nearly a professional at it. Why are so many people like that? I know on his part he has lived a life that was pretty much different from the rest of us. But in the end when all your friends are gone who is there to pick you up? Family. I remember telling Mitchell many years ago that his family were the ones that would always be there. Even after he has done the things that he has done to all of us, acting like he did not need us, betraying our trust, we are there for him. I know on my part it is going to take some time for me to trust him. It is to the point with us that we need some proof and not just words. We have heard them too many times. Even after all of that, it is Jennifer, Brittni and Chandler that I most want to protect. What have they had to live in on a daily basis with Mitchell? We have only seen what he allows us to see, but to have to live with it on a day-to-day basis, I cannot imagine. None of us have been perfect in our adult lives, we have all done things that we wish we could re-do, prevent from happening, and keep secret, but in the end it comes out for the whole world to see. I cannot even imagine how Jennifer has felt the past 2 years, going through the death and grieving of her mother. I thank God everyday for my Mom and that I have had her through the good and the bad of my life. We have had our differences but we still crave each other's attention and love. What would I do if I was in Jennifer's place? She has been stuck in a cesspool of memories for 2 years, living in the same house with the same furnishings. She has been worrying about everybody else but her own health which has not been very good. Depression is a very bad problem, mood swings, sadness, loneliness. I know from experience. I have not been there for her and I feel bad for it knowing what depression can do to a person. I plan to do better from now on. We have to put our past feelings in the past. Which is easier said than done. We, as Christians, are to forgive, maybe not ever forget, but forgive. Without God's help that is impossible to do. As I get older I realize just how much hurt, meanness, loneliness, and sadness is in the world. How many people do we past everyday that have problems worse than ours. That don't make our problems is less important, but there are others far worse. We have a roof over our head, family to help us through the tough times, decent clothes to wear, we don't worry about where our next meal is coming from and we have a little money to do things that we like. We drive vehicles that are running good, we have our health, our jobs, our children and grandchildren. Now for the update on Jennifer. The breathing tube was taken out tonight about 6:00 p.m. She was a little apprehensive about it. The temporary pacemaker was turned off and will be removed tomorrow. She is talking in a whisper, able to move her legs, arms, head. There does not appear to be any damage to anything right now. They said that after they take the pacemaker off they plan to have her up and walking in about 6 hours! So as it looks now, she is on the road to recovery in a big way. Thank you Lord for answered prayers and they continue to be answered daily. I wonder if she will be able to remember the whole incident? Right now I guess her mind of blocking some of the trauma. Can she remember us being in the room and talking? Could she hear us even though she was sedated? What was she thinking if she was able to be thinking while she was sedated? Does she remember getting agitated when the sedation would wear off? I have so many questions I want to ask her but I know it might be awhile before I can do that. She does not remember Brittni being in the hospital, she did not know she was at Greenville Memorial Hospital, I don't think she knows what happen. I feel that as time goes on her memory will come back. Brittni is still doing good, I don't think she has had any further vomiting or stomach pain. She goes back to school on Monday, but she also has a doctor's appointment. Chandler went back to school on Friday. Well, it is 11:26 pm and way, way past my bedtime. So off to bed I go..........

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................