Mom's in the Hospital!!

Ok, so my mom is in the hospital a lot, usually with pneumonia. She's a heavy smoker and drinker, and each time she pulls through fine. However, she also has high blood pressure, and it seems that that in conjunction with her drinking, her high blood pressure has caused her brain to bleed.

She had a headache for the last week, then she started to talk funny and wasn't making any sense, saying goofy things. So her sister, my Aunt Julie, took her to the hospital and it turns out they found blood in her brain, and were pretty sure that she had an aneurysm. They did an angiogram and found NO aneurysm, which is very good news. I drove up to Eau Claire to the hospital where she is staying and saw her. She was talking very well, recognized me and was having conversations with me, even though once in a while she would say goofy things; people who have been dead have all of a sudden visited her "yesterday in the hospital and brought her some coffee." There are more goofy things she said, and they made me laugh a lot. The neurosurgeon says that she has low sodium in her body, and in combination with that, her blood in the brain, and her alcohol withdrawal, was causing her confusion. She was even accusing the nurses of trying to poison her with a sucker, and then admitted that it was just a crazy dream.

So they put a tube in her noggin to drain out the access blood and cerebral fluid. She's got a little bit of a clot in there but the surgeon says the body will just eventually reabsorb it. However, now she's got severe alcohol withdrawal and they had to highly medicate her to calm her body down from the withdrawal. All those drugs made her so lethargic that she stopped breathing on her own, and they had to give her a breathing tube in the meantime. This is just so she can get over this first hump of alcohol withdrawal. Once that trauma passes, they'll take her off the dope and let her relax normally until her brain is clear of access fluid and she's back to normal.

I am a bit worried, it's a little scary. I DID go up and visit her Thursday night. That crazy car of mine ended up dying right as I pulled into the hospital parking lot, so I had to stay the night in the hospital with moms until the auto shopped fixed it the next day. But I'm an optimist and I do believe that everything happens for a reason, so if my car broke down right as I was driving into the hospital parking lot, at least it didn't break down anywhere in dark no-man's land Wisconsin where crazies could get me. At least I was at the hospital and there with my mom, and they were able to give me a little room to sleep in.

So in the meantime, I'm getting ready for our huge Careers Conference in Madison. The Center on Education and Work at UW-Madison holds an annual conference, and I'm presenting not only three times at the conference, but I'm also in charge of the Center on Education and Work booth AND the hands on Tech Room where we are allowing people to try out our www.wiscareers.wisc.edu site. Sadly, if my momma passes away, I'll have to miss the conference. My mom has an eleven-year-old daughter, and I would have to go and get that poor girl and bring her home with me. I was going to bring her home with me yesterday, but she told me that she wanted to stay up in Wheeler with our Aunt Julie so that she could keep going to school while our mom is in the hospital.

So now it's just waiting for mom's withdrawal to pass. And even though I am worried, I do believe that she'll be fine. I'll either be with her over the next several days, or I'll be at the Careers Conference. If you send me a message and I don't respond, that's where I am!!!

I've got some pics of my mom, Lacey and I on my photowebsite on the right. I would add some here directly but they are not on my computer. Tootles!!