I Created a Site for Moms

To see the update on my mom's go to her Caring Bridge site:

www.caringbridge.com/visit/crazykelly

Tuesday Update

Hello all,

I am working at the Careers Conference in Madison but I have time to write this blog. One of my jobs here is to watch the tech room, which we are doing nothing in and I'm free to dabble on the internet.

They took moms off the sedatives this morning at 7am. She hasn't really woken up yet as of 4:06 pm today, but the nurse let me know that she has opened her eyes and was able to wiggle the toes on her right foot at the request of the nurse. It looks like she still has some blood on the right side of her brain, so she doesn't seem to be able to wiggle her toes on her left foot. When I visited her last Thursday night, she was moving both sides of her body and trying to get out of bed, so I am not worried. We are just thinking that the pressure on the right ventricle of her brain is what's causing her to have a hard time moving her left side.

So far she has not begun to have anymore withdrawal symptoms. The nurse said they haven't seen her fidgity or stressed out all day. They seem to be having a hard time keeping her blood pressure at a steady level, but they don't seem to be freaking out about it, so I'm not going to freak out about it. They also needed to put a feeding tube in her today as she hasn't been able to eat on her own. So what we are waiting for is for her sedatives to completely wear off and her to get more awak and talk again. We want to see how she is feeling with regards to her withdrawal and pressure in the brain. I think I'm going to be heading up there on Thursday night or Friday early afternoon. I hope to stay the weekend and give her a hard time so she'll get her butt out of there and I can stop worrying about her and Lacey. I really wanted to bring Lacey down here to Southern Wisconsin with me but she wanted to stay up with Aunt Julie so she can stay in school and go to basketball. I'm hoping my mom will wake up and be normal soon so we can see what she wants us to do about Lacey. I'm not so sure Aunt Julie will want to keep her for too long!!!!

Here we All Are....

Pic taken just this past Christmas. It's us three, me, Momma and Lacey...

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!!

Woah, I'm so Bored

I'm not really bored, but I couldn't think of anything else to call this post. It's been a whole week since I posted something on here!! No one is crying loudly for me to update my blog!! Nothing new and exciting this week except the fact that we finally got our washer and dryer hooked up and the laundry room is officially finished. I would add a nice photo, but I'm too lazy to get up right now. I'll do a video later. It's super nice to be able to wash clothes. Who would have thought that I would be sitting in my house at 31, letting the ability to wash my own clothes excite the hell out of me. I am imagining myself as a 15-year-old, wondering what my future holds. "Well Amy, let's see, you have a future of being excited about getting your own washer and dryer!" The funny thing is, I actually don't feel ashamed at all that I'm excited about it!!! What a dork...

So it's already the middle of January huh? I've got next Monday off for MLK day, so I'm going to head back up to MN to visit my little buddies. Let's see if they have more germs to spread to me. Here is our last video, singing Christmas songs...




And on a side note that has nothing to do with Christmas songs, I am getting seriously fed up with driving in the snow. What the hell! I tried to go to work on Friday and I almost slid off the highway like 10 different times! I had to turn around and go back home because I was so scared! And then, I couldn't see from all the jerk cars flying past me, that I missed my own exit, and I sure as hell couldn't put on the breaks to try to make a last dive to my exit--so I had to drive about seven miles south to the next exit. Freakin' snow! That's enough already man! I'm really tired of being AFRAID when I'm driving, really. And I do not have a desire to go out and purchase a gas guzzling SUV; the little car that I'm driving right now is perfectly fine and has NO car payments attached to it. Plus, it costs $20 to fill the tank. Stupid snow, I will smite thee.

I'm Up at 3am!!

I really should get to bed, because it's Saturday night and I've gotta work on Monday. This means that on Sunday night I will not be able to fall asleep at a reasonable time, and then come Monday morning I'll have the hardest time trying to wake up because I couldn't fall asleep Sunday evening. I suck.

So what's new?? I'm sitting all alone in our house, which I think might be haunted. I get an eerie feeling sometimes. Sam is off on an ice fishing trip with his friend Nic. And I hear that Sammy caught a 30-inch walleye. What a week for him!

Nothing new and exciting on my end, just trying to get rid of a chest cold. Boy, I sure loved visiting my three baby nephews, but they are sure as hell germ factories. Got sick twice since I've visited them. But they were worth it, I can't NOT kiss and hug them to death. They're just too adorable.

Speaking of adorable...here is the baby, Manny, who just turned four on December 23rd, telling us what his name is; which is actually quite interesting, since his name is Manny Rivera, and there is a cartoon called "El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera." So let's just say that my nephew is El Tigre... So freakin' cute...