A Long Overdue Update

Hi Family and Friends,

My apologies for not updating the blog recently. For a while, the news was not good, and I always have a hard time bringing myself to write bad news. Good news, however, I love writing about, and there's plenty of that lately.

I'll try to briefly summarize the past few weeks:

The day after my last post was written, Mom was taken back to the hospital. She had become very sick while at home and eventually could not keep down any of her meds - meds that controlled pain, anxiety, and depression. As you can imagine, things were spiralling downhill rapidly. Back in the hospital, some initial scans caused concern that there was another bleed in Mom's brain. After a couple of different hospitals and a lot of worry and concern, there was good news! No new bleeding after all. Mom stayed in the hospital for a while to stabilize. It was determined that it was a virus that caused her illness. It also caused her to relapse; she got considerably weaker (to the point where she was no longer able to assist in transfers) and backslid in other areas as well.

We were expecting Mom to remain in the hospital for some time, but this past weekend, Dad took her 'home!'...home to the house he is renting, a house more central to town than our house out on Lazy Dog Road. The doctors told Dad that Mom could recover just as well at home as at the hospital, given the right in-home care. Right now it's important that Mom not catch any more bugs, so visitors are encouraged to keep visits between 5 and 10 minutes and to keep children and sickness away.

The news from home is mostly good recently. Mom and Dad seem in considerably better spirits, and are enjoying the freedom of being outside the hospital. They're both glad to be making home-cooked meals again as opposed to hospital fare! I've talked to Mom on the phone several times, and her voice is the strongest it's been in a long time. She and Dad continue to ask your prayers for recovery. Right now, it's nice to see how prayers are being answered in so many ways.

Prayer request from Dad

Well, the transition to living at home hasn't been going very well for Mom so far. The doctors changed Mom's meds/dosages the day of the transfer, which didn't end up working out at all - Mom was in a great deal of pain, and suffered from extreme anxiety as well. Consequently, the whole family spent three sleepless nights and days trying to help Mom adjust. Mom's also developed a bug and hasn't been feeling well at all. When I spoke with her on the phone last, I could barely hear her squeak out sentences. Poor Mom! Sometimes, when you think things can't get worse... they do. She did ask me to pray for something specifically: that her arms would get stronger so she can hold Thomas! (Thomas is Emily's baby, expected to arrive any day now! Emily will be taking a trip up to visit Mom and let her meet the baby shortly after he's born.) That prayer request was spoken in a very sad voice. I know it would mean a lot to Mom, so add this small thing to your thoughts and prayers for her.

I received the following email from Dad this evening, which pretty much summarizes the situation with Mom at home:

Hi Sarah,

Things aren't going as well as we hoped when we brought Mom home. The doctors changed her meds on the day we came home, and it took us a couple of days to get that sorted out. New doctors wanted new meds, and with all the changes, Mom spent three sleepless nights (so did the rest of us). We thought we were making progress on that, then Mom developed a cough, then thrush, and couldn't swallow anything because of the pain, We thought that was getting better, but tonight Mom started vomiting. She's too weak to do a transfer, so it's a good thing we bought the electric lift.

We're experimenting with med changes, and hoping to make progress.

This is way way harder than I ever imagined. Ask people to pray harder.

Love you,
Dad