Musical Chairs

Friday, Feb 1st, the took Pepaw to the ER by ambulance.  He had sores on his legs (from diabetes) that were infected.  The infection became sepsis.  His blood sugar, blood pressure and fever were fluctating.  Saturday Libby had a tournament in Mulvane and both little girls had basketball games.   Memaw cannot be left alone, so when he's in the hospital we have to scramble to make sure someone is with Memaw 24/7.  So we got the weekend covered and got all of the girls to their games.

Then Monday night, they had to take Memaw to the ER.  She had been to the doctor that day and they had changed some of her medicine.  Her blood pressure had spiked very high which is particularlly dangerous for someone who has had a stroke.  So Bob had already picked Libby up from her basketball practice after school, so she and Bob were already up at the hosptial with Pepaw when Lena called to say they were taking Memaw to the ER. 

I was at basketball practice with Madi and Carlie.  So Bob took Libby to stay with Amira at Memaw and Pepaw's house while Lena took Memaw to the ER.  Memaw was still in the ER at 9pm.  They'd told us that they wouldn't admit her but they wanted to run a bag of IV antibiotics through her before they let her go home.  Libby needed to go to bed so she could go to school the next day.

So Bob picked up Libby AND Amira and brought them to our house.  By the time Memaw was done at 10:30pm, no one felt like trying to get Amira back home.  So she spent the night with us.  Then Bob took her back to Arlena early the next morning when he went to visit Pepaw before his school started.

Whew!!!

How I Became "The People Of Walmart"....

In Feb of this year I took Libby to a basketball tournament in a city about 45 minutes away. It was just the two of us, and between games I took her to a local department store to get a tank top. While I was in there I passed out. I had started to feel faint and my vision was going Dark. I said "Libby Help Me". She couldn't hold up my weight and down I went.

They took me by ambulance to the local hospital. Libby was so grown up and calm. It scared us all. I had been changing some meds and one of the potential side effects was seizures. So we thought that was probably what happened.

I had pretty much forgot about it.

Well a week ago Monday...seven months later...I had taken the three girls to buy school supplies at Walmart. It was crazy and busy in there, and I was trying to make sure the girls got everything they needed. And they were "helping" buy throwing whatever they thought was cool into the cart.

We were almost done, and I started to feel faint again. I dug in my person and took some medicine, thinking that if I got it down it would keep me from passing out. Well it didn't work. Madi was at the end of the aisle, and Libby and Carlie were around the corner.

I went into a full Grand Mal Seizure. I fell backwards and into one of the support poles. This particular pole at Walmart happened to have a fire extinguisher attached to it. I don't remember any of this, but Madi said my head clipped the bottom of the extinguisher and knocked it loose from the pole. It flipped upside down and followed me down to the ground and the metal handle of the extinguisher slammed into the back of my head making a huge gash.

The girls said I was laying there in the aisle at Walmart with blood pooling around my head. Head wounds always bleed horribly. One of the employees ran over to the clearance rack and grabbed a shirt off of it to put pressure on the gash. I'm sure there's a good joke in there pertaining to that...I just can't think of one right now!

Libby was again very calm and cool in a crisis. She was able to tell them what meds I am taking, and used someones cell phone to call Granny. Bob wasn't answering his phone. They called 911.

They worked on me a while in the ambulance in the parking lot. My blood sugar was 63 and my heart rate was 180. I came too briefly in the ambulance. My Mom called Bob's sister and she came and picked the girls up at Walmart. Someone called the Butler County Sheriff's office and had them go find Bob out on the football field.

The first time I really came back to my senses it was 8:30pm. My parents were at the ER and so was Bob. The seizure had happened right after 6:30pm.

They gash went to the skull. They had to put in six stitches and fourteen staples. CT Scan showed that I did not have any tumors or skull fractures.

I saw a neurologist a few days ago. He says that I have Epilpsy and put me on anti-seizure meds. He said we'll probably never know why I'm having seizures or suddenly started having them in "Middle age". And YES he did use the phrase middle age. Humph!!! And yes he did look like he was 14 or 15.

He said he believes the meds will take care of it and that once we get it to the right levels I won't have any more seizures.

Being carted out of WalMart on an Ambulance stretcher in front of half my friends and acquaintances was definitely NOT on my list of things I wanted to do before I turned Forty. Just trying to be grateful it wasn't something more serious.

It really scared Madi and Carlie. They thought I'd lost all of the blood in my body.

Lost cat, ER, termites, crazy boss, late for work...

need I say more?

I knew it was going to be a long day when I realized about 25 minutes into my 45 minute drive to work that I'd left my laptop at home. At had to turn around and go back and get it. So I was 30 minutes late to work.

I hadn't been there very long, and I got a text from my husband saying "Your $600 cat got out of the house and we can't find it." Well Duff only cost $250...not $600 but he is a house cat who is declawed and doesn't ever go outside. I asked Bob to have the girls look for him under the trailer.

Then I had a meeting with my boss...well we aren't even going to discuss that.

THEN, we are supposed to sell our house on Friday. And I get a call late that morning (four days before closing) that the termite inspector found live termites in the garage. So I am on the phone trying to find someone to treat them...making sure the buyer isn't going to back out on us. The house is only 5 years old...how did it get termites!?!!?!

Work is crazy we are trying to plan an implementation that is going to start on Fri and end Monday night with people working shifts for 24/7 the whole time.

I finally get to head home. I get there, and Carrie (Bob's Sister In Law) said her blood pressure was high and could I help her make an appointment. She lives in Michigan, so I suggested that I run her up to Walgreen's Take Care Clinic. We get there at 7pm and they close at 7:30pm. Her BP was 209/102 and they told us to go straight to the ER. So I took her there. They gave her nitroglycern and put her on two BP medicines. We got home at 11pm.

When we got home, Bob insisted that I look under the trailer and call for the cat, because they hadn't found him all day. So I pull back a section of trailer skirt. And he's sitting there under the trailer about 20 feet away. So I crawl under there to get him...its just 20ft. I still have my work clothes on. I just touch his tail and he gets up and moves 20ft further under the trailer. I go after him. Finally he gets so far under there that its too low for me to follow. So I crawl back out with spiders in my hair and dirt all over my clothes...and no cat.

What a day. I sure slept good that night.

Bugs

My first post of the year (and decade) and it's about sickness. We've had the stomach virus going through our family. Madi got it first. I was up with her all night, and finally about 8am she stopped throwing up. I stayed home from work with her and she seemed to be doing fine. She was quite the princess....laying on the couch sucking her thumbing and asking me to go get her this and go fetch her that!

Then in the afternoon, she started to look worse. Her face broke out in a rash and she had her face a scrunched up funny. I asked her what was wrong, and she said that when she opened both eyes she saw two of me. So she was keeping one eye closed. That really scared me. I called her doctor who said to take her to the Urgent Care Center or ER.

They wanted to put in an IV. Madi has always been allergic to pain, and to make matters worse, the first IV didn't work so they had to do it again.

She had to call Papaw and tell him all about it. She said "they hurt me so bad with that needle and then they put the left needle in the right arm and the right needle in the wrong arm!"

Now Libby has the stomach virus. I hope no one else gets it.

Kendra and Kathleen - Trip to the Hospital

I was single when I first became a Foster Parent. My first long-term Foster Kids were Kendra who was 5 and Kathleen who was 3. They were the youngest two kids of a sibling group of 6.

I had only had the girls a few weeks, when Kathleen got very sick. She was a teeny, tiny petite thing. She looked much younger than 3. I had no medical history on the girls and really we didn't know each other very well yet. At to that, I was really a pretty inexperienced parent.

I took Kathleen to the minor emergency center one cold night. She was wheezing and coughing, running a high fever and very pale. The doctor was a very handsome young man. He had dark hair and green eyes. I'm wondering if he's single. He starts asking me questions about Kathleen's medical history. He wants to know if she's been diagnosed with asthma. I tell him that I don't know...that they are my Foster Daughters.

It seemed like we were in there all evening. They are giving her breathing treatments and putting an oxygen mask on her. Every time they mess with her, Kathleen starts wailing. Every time Kathleen starts crying, Kendra gets scared and starts crying too.

Finally the doctor comes back in and tells me that he thinks they need to put Kathleen in the hospital. I'm terrified. I've never had a child in the hospital, and I don't even know this one very well. And there's tons of red tape when a Foster Child is sick. And what am I going to do with Kendra while I stay in the hospital with Kathleen??? As all of this runs through my head, my eyes start to fill with tears. The doctor looks at me and calmly says "If you start crying too, I swear thatI'm going to throw ALL THREE of you OUT of here!!!" That bit of humor helped me get a grip. LOL.

I call my Mom and she says she'll come and get Kendra and stay with her at my house. I pack up the two little girls and head over to the hospital. By now they are both exhausted and so am I. We haven't had any dinner. On the way to the hospital, Kendra sees a McDonalds. She starts throwing an absolute fit to stop at McDonalds and get something to eat. I have a three year old in the car who isn't breathing well....no way am I stopping.

We get to the hospital and I park in the parking garage. Kendra is into a complete meltdown by this point. I'm walking across the parking garage and she just falls down on the cement kicking, screaming that she wants McDonalds and having a Wall-Eyed Fit. I just look at her and calmly explain that I am taking Kathleen into the hospital whether or not Kendra follows us, and I walk off. Kendra lets me get out of sight around a corner, and then jumps up and catches up with me.

I finally get checked in to the hospital. Granny has over a two hour drive, but I wait and wait and she doesn't come. She was driving in the dark and goes through a horrible thunderstorm. She said it was raining so hard she could barely see the road. Then when she got to Tulsa, she couldn't find the hospital in the dark. But she put on her "Towanda Suit" and finally made it to the hospital.

Storms and Stitches

Bob runs the weight room for the High School on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. On those days, he needs to leave just as soon as I get home in order to make it on time. Well Thursday, they'd been predicting bad storms all day long. I got home at 5:30pm, and Bob was heading out the door. The storms had already hit Wichita and were quickly heading our way.

Frank came upstairs and asked me if he could go over to the neighbor girl's house. I told him that he needed to stay home. He whined "Well, LIBBY is over therrrrreeee." I told him to go and get Libby, because I wanted them all home when the storm hit.

Well I went ahead and started unwinding from my day, checking the mail, etc. I didn't realize that Frank had never come back from the neighbor girl's. I'd just been home a few minutes when Carlie starts crying in my bedroom. She hardly ever cries when she gets hurt, so when she does cry, I know it's serious. They'd been on my bed playing, and Madi and pulled Carlie by the arm and she hit the post on my bed

LIBBY is also in there with the little girls. I asked her what she was doing in there and she said she'd been asleep in my bed. It briefly registers in my brain "Well, where's Frank then?" But I am trying to take care of Carlie and see where the blood is coming from. She has a hole in the corner of her upper lip about the size of the end of my little finger. It's going to need some stitches.

I'm not freaking out, but there is an edge of panic there. My two-seater sports car is parked behind the SUV. So I decide that I will take Carlie in that to the ER to get stitches. I put her (bleeding and crying) into the car, and then Madi and Libby run out and ask "But what about US?" I realize that I can't leave them there alone...especially not with a huge storm coming. I don't know what I was thinking. So I get Carlie out of my car and into the SUV and get Madi and Libby loaded up and realize that Frank is missing.

He never came back from the neighbor girl's. By now, the storm is really close. The wind is blowing and it's dark. I drive to the neighbor's house, but no one is at home!!! I have NO idea where Frank is. Again, for a split second I think about just leaving him. LOL. I decide that I will drive through the neighborhood looking for him. The winding is blowing, and I'm driving around shouting from my car window "FRANNNKKKK....Where ARE YOU?????" I run into the older lady who lives across the street. She's walking her dog. I ask "Have you seen Frank?" She says "He went that way. He said he was looking for Libby." I go down a few houses and another set of neighbors are sitting out on their porch watching the storm roll in. They again point me in the direction Frank went. Eventually, I catch up to him, and get him loaded into the car.

We make it to the ER right before the storm hits. By this time Carlie has quite crying, and she's completely calm, cool and collected. Much more so that I am!! She was SO brave at the ER. She told the ER doctor, that she wants to be a doctor too, but she only wants to take care of 1st graders! They put a stitch in her lip and send us home. She did not move or make a sound as they gave her a shot in her lip and sewed it up.

On the way home, I call Granny to tell her what's happened. She is on her way to the cellar. The storm has just hit their area. Granny and Papaw had just made it to their cellar when a small tornado went over their house. It brought down one of their trees along with tons of other big limbs. It lifted up the edge of the roof of their house as well. But they were lucky they were in the cellar and there was no other damage.

By 8pm it was all over. Whew!!!