Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Where You Been?

Where have you been, you may have asked.
I have no rotten excuse for my blog going lame, unattended like a dressing room at your local department store when you need help “zipping up”.
I’ve just been busy living life. Just like you, and you and you there…the ones who keep their blogs current, the ones who have readers….because of it!

So, to summarize what’s up with me, here goes.
I’ve been taking care of my Mom, who passed out one evening brushing her teeth. While she was going down she had a presence of mind to try to hold on so that she wouldn’t make a big bang when she fell so she slid….down the side of the open bathroom door. My mother takes a blood thinner so any bumps often turn into black masses of pooled blood under the skin, and this time, it was golf ball size. She landed on her rump, and scooted across several rooms until she got to the basement landing, where she has steps to swing her legs over and pull herself up with the handrails we’ve installed there. Then she promptly went to bed.

Now here’s the thing. She’s a few weeks short of 80 years old. She has an untreated aneurysm in her brain (she refused to have it surgically repaired, out of fear, about three years ago) See, Mom hates hospitals, fears hospitals, and fears losing her independence along with her largest fear and that is of being forced to die alone in a nasty nursing home. She has isolated herself from the world in the past ten years anyway, keeping everyone at bay, so now, in her time of need there is no one who cares except her family. That’s where I come in. She didn’t tell me, because she knows I would make her have this goose egg of a lump checked out in the ER, I’d be concerned about the real reason she dropped in the first place. Mom, um, why’d you pass out?
So, I spent quite a bit of time with her, watching her every move while convincing her that she needs medical attention.
I had small successes.

That same week, I was fighting my own battle with my own health. If you are a regular reader, you know of my chronic headaches, and my trigeminal neuralgia diagnosis, one that has been a source of contention as far as cause and treatment, oh and the quality of life issue when over zealous neurologists want to prescribe every ugly drug known to mankind.
So, I’d sought a second opinion, one that left me stunned by asking me for a leap of faith, one that began weaning me off of three of the drugs that have for the most part controlled the nasty awful pain that has ruled the last three years of my life.

That’s where I’ve been. Happy news though! Mom’s doing fine. Fears aside, she thanked me in the end for caring for her and for easing her fears by forcing her to get her goose egg checked out. Alls well for now. For now.
My new neurologist, one who has practiced at Cleveland Clinic (I guess they are top dog for Neurology in the country) and who turns out, has me almost off my drugs, only receiving physical therapy on my cervical area, pinpointing my pain from that area and the pressure of crimping the nerve that runs along the very base of your skull. Cool.
And THEN…
A new baby entered the picture. My step daughter (I hate to use the step word, she is in fact, my daughter through my husband) had her second child, a granddaughter again for my husband and myself. Welcome Lillian Grace – otherwise known as Lily. A tiny beautiful bundle at 6 lbs, 12 ozs. Compact at 17 inches long. Here I am the day she was born by cesarean section, Grandma ran to the hospital after work to smooch those baby cheeks.

Grandma and Lily

I’d like to say I’ll work harder at keeping up my blog – that is until life grabs me by the back of my baggy ass jeans and lands me far far away from my PC. (I’ve lost a few more glorious pounds! I’m down about 25 total now, hurrah!!!!)
Happy Hump Day everyone!