The day everything started to change, part 2

You may want to read part 1 first.

Today's update: Gery is having trouble maintaining his blood pressure and respiratory rate.  He has pulmonary embolisms and is on blood thinners, which carries a risk of more bleeding in his brain, but his lungs need to be functional to make his brain functional.  Gery is DEFINITELY more awake and aware, and he has the capacity to move his right side.  Yesterday, when I walked around to his right hand, it was laying on the pillow, clenched in a fist with only his middle finger extended.  He is unhappy, and while I don't want him unhappy, I am so glad to see that my stubborn fighter of a husband is there.  He calms down when I sit with him, and I'm just waiting to be allowed back in now - the nurses usually ask me to leave for shift change.

Saturday, January 26, 2013, continued

As the ambulance arrived, so did our friends who were picking Sarah up, so I took her over to their car with her car seat and coat, and wished my friends luck.  As it turned out, Sarah was totally happy and fine with them until my brothers got to the Children's Museum to be with them, and once they were there, she had a blast.

Gery, on the other hand, was agitated and frustrated and starting to become a little defiant to the paramedics.  Since he was conscious and capable of moving, they wanted him to stand up out of the car.  He seemed to think he was being pulled over, and kept saying, "I already gave it to you," and "I'm not getting out for any f***ing Australians."  I finally said to him, "You're not in trouble, they just need to see what's underneath you," and he stood up.  I've never seen two men move so quickly - they had Gery on the stretcher and restrained in seconds.  I know it was for his own protection, in case he had another seizure or were to become physically aggressive. 

The ambulance then sat there for about 15 minutes.  During that time, an emergency response truck from the ambulance service came, too, driven by my brother's boss.  My brother is an EMT in Erie, though he wasn't working that day.  My brother's boss explained that even though we were a few blocks from the hospital, they were giving Gery some Ativan and assessing his mental state.  Later I was told that he gave the correct latitude and longitude for Erie in response to the wrong question (he didn't answer "Do you know where you are?" with that).  He says he doesn't know the latitude and longitude for Erie. 

Finally, the ambulance moved and when I started following it, I thought the car was shaking really badly.  I was sure I needed a tire and an alignment.  The car turned out to be fine and I was the one shaking.  When I arrived at the hospital, of course, I couldn't just go in with Gery.  I had to do his registration paperwork and wait for him to be settled into a room.  My brother (the EMT) arrived at the hospital to be with me at about the same time my other two brothers were arriving at the Children's Museum to be with Sarah, and while I was waiting to be let in to Gery's room, I called his parents' house to let them know. 

At this point, I was certain that he had diabetes and had a seizure related to blood sugar.  He's a big guy, diabetes runs in his family, and he had been irritable and complaining of short term headaches that were intense and didn't respond to anything but went away in seconds to minutes.  Diabetes totally made sense.  But my first question to the ER doctor was, "What's his blood sugar?" and when she told me, it wasn't high or low enough to have caused a seizure.  I said that, and she said, "That's why he's going to CT next."  (This is a trend that has continued.  I am always a step or two ahead, mentally, than the doctors are telling me to be.  Gery's neurosurgeon laughs at me a little bit but humors me, and I appreciate it.)

After Gery's CT, the ER doctor came in and said that there was something "interesting" (a word I have come to hate) on the films and that neurosurgery and neurology would be in to talk to us, but he would be admitted to the hospital for the night and we would be "sent to Pittsburgh," which made me laugh and say, "I do want to go home, so that's good!"

Gery remembers none of this.  He remembers the odd smell and then he was in the regular room at the hospital.  Nothing of the ambulance or ER, and most of the hospital is fuzzy and vague for him. 

TO BE CONTINUED (again)... I get to go in with Gery now!

The day when everything started to change

I know I haven't blogged in a few years, but it's time to re-activate.  Life is dramatically different than it was even just a month ago, and certainly different than the last time I wrote.

My baby Llama is not a baby anymore - she'll be five years old in six weeks.  Her real name is Sarah.

My sweet husband, Bucket, is in ICU after surgery to resect a brain tumor and complications.  His real name is Gery.  And I'm going to tell the story here, because as much as I love texting (and I do love texting!) I am spending more time texting than time with him or with Sarah.  Time is the one thing I have never had enough of and now it's even more precious than ever before.

I'll start at the beginning, tell chunks of it as I have time, and update daily or close to daily.  

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Gery and I took Sarah to gymnastics and got in the car (my new car - the first I'd ever bought for myself with financing) for a quick weekend trip to Erie.  The Thursday before, we'd decided to go up, visit the Children's Museum with friends, take my brothers to dinner, stay at a new hotel with a lake view, and I would go out to the bars for a few hours with my high school and college friends while Gery and Sarah swam around in the fancy hotel pool and bounced on the fancy hotel beds.  What can I say?  We're easily pleased.

We got close to Erie and stopped for lunch at McDonald's.  We bribed Sarah to finish her chicken nuggets with the promise of getting to play with her friend Claire-Bear at the Children's Museum in a few minutes.  Everything seemed okay, even in retrospect.

As we were getting off the Bayfront Highway onto State Street, I gave Sarah a piece of gum and offered Gery one.  He said, "No, that smells like... disgusting.  Like solvents and... garbage!" and put down the window to try and get the smell out of the car.  I thought he was being ridiculous.  Gum?  Seriously?  It's the same gum I always have in my purse.

I don't know why, but a few seconds later, I asked him if he felt okay.  If he wanted to pull over and let me drive.  He didn't answer me.  As we passed UPMC Hamot, I asked him if he needed to go to the emergency room.  He didn't answer me.  I didn't think his not answering was that strange, because Gery just does not answer questions that he thinks don't deserve answers.  He passed some parking spots right in front of the Children's Museum, and I got a little snippy and asked him why.  He didn't answer that.  He turned right and came to a red light and stopped.  We were the first car at the light.

The light didn't change.  Gery jammed on the gas, completely floored it, and I looked at him angrily, about to yell at him for screwing around.  He was having a seizure.  I grabbed the wheel as I realized we were rocketing through a busy (for downtown Erie) intersection against the light, against traffic, and toward pedestrians and buildings.  I don't recall saying anything, but when Sarah re-enacted it at school, she had the passenger saying, "You need to give me the wheel.  You are having a seizure.  You're okay.  You need to give me the wheel," very calmly over and over.  I was absolutely panicked.  I thought we were going to die, all three of us, in a terrible car accident in Erie.

I remembered, somehow, that Gery had told me several times that if I turned the key off, I would lose what little control I had of the car, so shift it in to neutral and try to steer.  That's what I did.  The engine was still racing because his foot was still jammed on the gas pedal, but it wasn't making the car go faster.  As the car slowed, I steered it into a pile of snow (thanks, Erie, for not plowing side streets!) and it stopped.  I put it in park as Gery stopped seizing.  But he didn't start breathing.  I got out of the car and went around to the driver's side to put the seat back and do CPR.  My car is too nice and has electric seats, so it took forever to get the seat to recline.  He started having a second seizure, and I thought, "Well, you can't seize if you're dead," and took Gery's phone out of his pocket to call 911.

I gave the dispatcher the wrong street.  Forgive me, I haven't lived in Erie for 10 years.  Gery stopped seizing and started puking yellow foam on himself.  I got off the phone with 911 and looked in to reassure Sarah that everything would be okay.  Gery started seizing again.  I heard the ambulance one block up and called back to 911 to report that I was one block north, but I could not remember the street names.  (I was on Fifth Street, so that shouldn't have been difficult for me).

In the middle of all this, my friends texted me to say they were running late and would be at the Children's Museum in a few minutes and I called back to say we would not make it at all.  They came and picked Sarah up, took her with them, and between them and my brothers, Sarah still had a sweet little vacation weekend.  She did not come to the hospital except to leave with us on Sunday morning, and she never came inside. 

When Gery stopped seizing for the third time, his eyes came to the front.  He looked at me and I said, "You had a seizure.  Don't even worry about it, you're going to be fine," and he took my hand and kissed it, then said a bunch of sounds that were not words.  He clearly thought he said something, though, so rather than upset him further, I said, "I know."  The ambulance arrived.

TO BE CONTINUED... Sarah's up and getting in the bathtub. 

Llama's vocabulary

"Case it up" : Zip my jacket
"No tae-bo there" : These shoes are velcro
"Sue-mah-nah" : Banana

When applying for jobs (I've had three interviews and I'm going to another one tomorrow, I have two offers and I'm hoping for at least one more), I'm going to start adding "two-year-old" to my languages spoken.

My word is my bond, okay?

In an email earlier today, I told Sirius XM that I would never recommend them to anyone and would tell anyone who asked me that I had problems. You haven't asked, but I'm telling.

We bought a new car on September 16. It's a GM and it came with a free three-month trial of XM radio. The trial expired on December 16, and XM called our house daily with offers that got better and better, until on December 22, I agreed to a 5-month contract for $22.15. They took my credit card information, but I said I did not want to be auto-charged at the end of the 5-months. The gentleman said that they would send a bill, then, and not charge my card.

The bill came, I wrote a check (to be fair, Bucket wrote the check) and paid it. Then the credit card bill came and it was charged also. I called Sirius XM's customer care number and asked for the credit card charge to be reversed. They said it would take 7-10 days.

On the 11th day, I checked my credit card online and it had not been refunded. I called the number again, and the woman who I spoke with said that it would take another 7-10 days from that call. I asked her how my card was charged immediately but it would take this long to refund the money. She said, "That's how ev-er-y-thing works," in this sing-songy voice that I use to talk to Llama when she's being particularly toddler-ish and I'm frustrated.

I said, "That's fine, you can cancel my account altogether and refund me the balance of the contract." She put me on hold and came back and gave me a refund amount of $39.76, which would be processed by check in 3-4 weeks. The service was terminated within 5 minutes of my pulling the car out of the garage, so the kill signal was sent immediately.

I emailed Sirius XM using the link on the website to advise them that I was frustrated because they process the charges and the kill signals immediately, but refunds take so long. Also, I loved my satellite radio. Bucket has a receiver in his car that I got him when Howard Stern went to Sirius in 200... 5? Whenever. Long time ago. We've been customers for years. They offered me nothing, and continued to reiterate that the refund would take 3-4 weeks.

Bucket's contract is up in March, and guess what we aren't going to need anymore? Sirius XM radio. At this point, I would not even activate the free trial if we were to replace his car with a GM vehicle, that's how frustrated I am. You cannot tell me that it takes 3-4 weeks to process a refund when it took minutes for them to double bill me.

That is all. This is the most public forum I have, so there it is. Don't get Sirius XM unless you want to be double billed, treated like an idiot, and frustrated beyond belief.

An important lesson from my Llama.

"Mama, you don't sing with me."

She has moved on from singing with me and she now sings solo. She has a set list that includes the alphabet and "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep," but her lyrics about the sheep are a little confused. I tried to sing along and help her, and she advised me that it would be best if I kept my musical genius to myself.

"Baa, baa, baa, baa, baa, baa, black sheep,
Any any wool?
Yes, sir, yes, sir,
Three bags full.
One for my master,
One for my lame (is that supposed to be me?)
Baa, baa, black sheep,
Any any wool?"

That's where it ends. There's also a new letter called "em-en-em-en-o."

Following up... And random thoughts.

So, I alluded last week to having "fallen and busted my leg all up." What I did was sprain my ankle, tearing one ligament completely and partially tearing another. I get to go to physical therapy three times a week for a month, and then decide on whether I'd like some surgery or not. This must be the reason I'm unemployed!

You know how I said wine was one of my reasons to be happy? Well, I started Weight Watchers, so the wine consumption is drastically decreased. I figured that since I can't run my three 5Ks that I had planned (I should be able to run two, but I'm pretty sure I won't be running in March), I should probably do something else to keep my fitness momentum going. I'm not quite the biggest that I have ever been - that was at my wedding, the opposite of what everyone else in the world does - but I'm getting there and I don't like it. I'm almost to the end of my first week, and Bucket would like to get involved. That's saying something.

My little Llamacita was ready to watch the Miss America pageant with me tonight, but she didn't make it past the first elimination. She danced to "Dynamite," by Taio Cruz, with the contestants, and then she proclaimed it "Boring," and asked to go to bed. I know that pageants (excuse me, scholarship contests) aren't exactly the preferred viewing for preschoolers these days, but I have fond memories of watching the talent portions with my mom and my grandma. Imagine my surprise when I found that the talent portion would not be aired! I guess it's a good thing that Llama was too tired to stay up. She spent all of her energy cheering for the Steelers. She wore her jersey three times this week because I didn't have the energy to argue with her about it, and she wears a shirt under it, so... it was okay, right? Edited: Apparently ten contestants get to show their talents. The first one started playing Chopsticks. I'm not even kidding.

Llama and Tuna Roll are taking gymnastics together, and that is a sight to behold. Llama does not follow directions, because she only wants to jump on the trampoline and dance with ribbons. Tuna Roll does not want to come out from under her daddy's chair for the first half of class, and then she only wants to jump on the trampoline and dance with ribbons. We've been reassured that all new students act this way for the first couple months. I guess I'm paying for the experience of watching her not listen to someone else. It is not refreshing. Of course, she loves it and talks about it all week, so she will remain in gymnastics. I love her enthusiasm, and the class is at a cheer gym... look at what I've become! From a band geek to a potential cheer mom!?

I have a lot of unorganized thoughts about princesses, fairies, gymnastics and cheering, pageants, and socially enforced gender roles and how much I wanted everything to be gender neutral around her as a baby so she would CHOOSE her way. Yeah, she chose sparkles, pink, fairy wings and wands. But she also chooses dump trucks, excavators, backhoes and sandboxes, and she regularly approaches Bucket and me with her fists up and asks us if we want to fight her. If nothing else, she's well balanced. And aggressive.

Until such time as I have another thought that's too long for Facebook or Twitter... Good night!

2011: Not our best year so far.

At this time last year, we were in Disney World. It was much preferable to what I've done so far this year, which is get a lot of rejection letters from companies to which I've applied for jobs, and fall and bust my leg all up.

But lo! There are many reasons why I'm happy. Behold:

1. My little Llama calls me "Mamacita." And I call her Llamacita, even though Llama certainly isn't her real name. She makes me laugh every single day, sometimes at the last possible second before I get super angry with her. Three looms large, and I've heard "Terrible Twos... Torrential Threes... F-ing Fours."

2. Wine.

Okay, I'm out of reasons. But now that I'm fairly immobile, have graduated with my M.Ed, and am unemployed (but Llama goes to daycare three days each week so that we can keep her spot and she can continue to see other people and be less feral, more social)... I have nothing to do but apply for jobs, stalk people on Facebook, obsessively read newspapers online, and blog. Ha!