Flat Stanley and a Mama Setback

Flat Stanley heard that it snowed back home in Mississippi, so he wanted me to go ahead and post this photo I took one morning this week, about 7:30 a.m. It's not snow, though; it's frost on the roof of the Buick.

Friday morning when Mama woke up at Mt. Tabor, she was nauseous and vomiting. It was a few hours before they could get an order for compazine for that, so she spent quite a bit of time being miserable. However, over in the late afternoon she was letting ice chips melt in her mouth and didn't appear to be dehydrated. This morning her condition was the same, even after a second compazine, and her blood pressure quite high. I asked the nurse to call her doctor, and the neurologist was the one she got in contact with by phone. That doctor told Mt. Tabor to send Mama back to the hospital which they did. She's been admitted again and is a hundred percent miserable at best. In the ER she kept saying that her eyes were swimming around in her head, and even after two doses of one nausea med and two doses of another nausea med, she felt no better.

My brother Howard and I are in her room now, waiting to see a doctor, we hope. His plane landed about 12:20 a.m. this morning, I made one wrong turn on the way back to the apartment but corrected our route quickly and got us over to the guys for a short visit with Lamont and Lindsay--Leland was sound asleep. Lindsay herself didn't feel well, and threw up,off and on all night but did feel some better about 3:30 p.m. today.

Before all of this happened, Howard, Lamont, Leland had planned to eat brunch at the Bijou Cafe, one of mine and Mama's favorite places to eat which we discovered with the help of the guys back in the summer of 2004. I made the decision that we ought to eat there and then to to the ER because otherwise we could be in a real bind, energy-wise. Thank goodness I did because we ate around 11:15 a.m. and it's now eight hours later. We're talking about supper out at the Helvetia Tavern, after we see the doctor. That meal we had at the Bijou was as good as it always is. I don't know exactly what they had, but I had a short stack of buttermilk pancakes and some apple pear compote with whipped cream. I needed that great tasting comfort food, let me tell you. Plus, Howard and I walked from the apartment to the cafe, through mist, rain, small hail and mist again--all in a mile and a third. It felt splendid to be walking, especially with my brother!

Speaking of the doctor, when Mama was being transported into her room, I saw Dr. Kendall, her primary medical doctor from her other admission. He was surprised and sad to see her back so quickly and in such a state. He said maybe we would have to go with one or both of the other procedures on her blood vessels. He said that he would make sure whoever would take care of her over the weekend would know all about her.

Just now another young doctor came in to ask some questions and check her out. She told us that she had talked with the partner of the cardiovascular surgeon who had consulted with the other doctors for the last two weeks. It appears at this time that Mama will have something done with her carotids, then the bypass. I don't know myself how her little body will take all of this, but as she is right now, totally miserable, she would say "Go for it" if she felt like talking. This doctor had no specific time frame, but she said that more than likely someone from cardiovascular would see her tomorrow. I'm hoping that the man who did the left subclavian stent will see her tomorrow, too. That way maybe they could do this on Monday. Who knows.

All of her stuff that I took to Mt. Tabor, clothes, toiletries, framed photos, etc. is being kept there until I can get it tomorrow. Thank goodness. I can go get it while Howard is here with Mama, waiting for doctors to appear out of the mist. Sorry, but it does seem to take an awful long time for them to appear sometimes.

Anyway, we're going to eat supper. Time passed--we ate well at Helvetia Tavern--Duncan's been walked and bathed. He and Howard are dozing on the couch. We're all going to bed after the weather forecast. Oh, my,it's predicted to be 20 degrees Monday night. On another channel, it's predicted to be 25 degrees Monday night. Either way, it sounds cold.

Thank you for your continued prayers and support.