Monday, February 28, 2011

I am alive!!!! (with the grace of God!!)

Wowza!!! I know that alot of people who knows me just figure that I jumped off the computer and dissapeared. Wellllll....I kinda did. Not by choice, but by a major medical emergency!! What happened is still somewhat of a mystery, because I certainly don't know everything that happened and never will! So, lets go back to August 2009......

Patricia and myself went on a weekend trip to Mendocino. We just hadn't gone anywhere all summer and we needed to get away for awhile!! We had both been working so very hard. Myself on our new home, awaiting for the rest of my family to get moved out of Arkansas to Calif., and my sister at her job as a social worker. We were just tired. So, I was the driver on the journey. We made good time, and we actually found a nice motel for the weekend.

So, it came time to leave, again I was driving. About an hour or so from home I started feeling bad and had Patricia drive the rest of the way home. We got unpacked and all and I went on with life.

Sometime during the next week, I was talking to my husband on the phone and he remembers that I told him that my head was hurting and that I was going to lay low that day. As the day rocked on, I was doing my thing and finally I hit the bed for a much needed rest. I thought that I was still tired after our trip. The very next thing I knew, for some reason I had called 911 and told someone that I was in trouble and that I needed an ambulance RIGHT NOW!! That was the last thing I remembered at all for 4 months!!!!! Much of that hppened to me was told to me by my husband after that fact. Even now, when I ask him about something new he recalls something new sometimes.

My aunt phoned my husband and told him to come NOW because I was in bad shape. According to what was told to me, nobody knew if I would make it through the night! He got here the very next day, not knowing if I was alive or not. Once he got here, he took our youngest son to the house, gave him some money to eat on etc. He went to the hospital to see about me and where I was at. He made arrangements for me to be transfered yo UCFS--which is the University of California at San Francisco.

Apparently I was basically stuck in a holding pattern until he got here and could make decisions about me. Transferring me gave him some time to deal with Preston and getting arrangements to get him started in school etc. The poor guy had his plate full from the moment he hit the ground.

Finally the diagnoses was truly made. I had a cerebral brain bleed. Kinda like a stroke but different. Nothing actually ruptured but what happened was for some reason my blood vessels started spasming. The doctors told Tony that there wasn't anything they could do for me at the time. All they could do was just watch me and moniter whatever they monitered. If I had known I would have been scared to pieces!!!

So, there I was. Not conscius at all. Didn't have the first clue about what had been happening with me or what people were going through in my family. My kids were scared, my family was scared friends were scared. meanwhile I didn't know anything about anything and couldn't care less!!

As time rocks on things were being done to me. I was improving somewhat, even though I had no recollection of it. I had passed through the point of dying, but still it was unknown how I would recover of if I would ever recover. As I am typng this, I can say now that I am well on my way to the big recovery! My husband tells me a lot of stories that are amazing, funny and sweet. Apparently, one day it was PT and OT day. My therapists were working with me and were asking me questions along the lines of person, place and thing. The asked me if I knew where I was at. I told them completely the wrong answers. Really, I didn't know where I was or anything. I thought I was still in Arkansas at the old ''local'' hospital. The therapist eventually told me that I was at UCSF and been in the hospital for x days. I apparently was blown away by the info because I said just as clear as a bell ''shut the fuck up!!'' The girls with me told Tony (hub) that I was going to be just fine one day because of what I said. They were totally cracked up. I had no clue about what I said, and if they hadn't told me, I really wouldn't have known really where I was at! At that time I wasn't clear on my location on the planet. I was kinda going along to get along at that time I guess.

So, again time was passing. The progress I was making was very good and it got along to time to leave the hospital, but I still wasn't ready to go home yet. The next thing I knew, I had been transferred to another facility. By the time my poor little brain caught up to actually thinking clearly, remembering things, being able to communicate etc etc etc, I was never so shocked in all my life!!! My husband had admitted me to a nursing home!! You see, I myself had worked in a nursing home for 9 years!! I was the administrator of the nursing home I worked at, knew everything about nursing homes!! I had done my tour through the trenches wih nursing homes. I didn't want to be in another nursing home until I was an old woman! I tell you, I was beyond pissed off!! How dare they do that to me! Of course now, I totally understand. I had to go there for the kind of care on the 24hr basis for the time being. My poor hubby felt bad enough having to do that to me. He totally didn't have an alternative until I got better. And better I did get! In January 2010, I finally got to go home!! But, as I found out later, I was no where out of the woods.

You see, I was still missing part of my skull. I had to back eventually and get it repaired. So life rocked on and it came time to go back to the hospital and repair the hole in my head. In mid June I had my appointment for the repair. Apparently, my body did not like getting fooled with again and I had a bit of complications. Soon enough though, I got over all that and went on to the next phase. I was scheduled to receive a month of intensive physical and occupational therapy. I was doing all right in the speech therapy area so I got to miss 90% of all of that.

While I was again in a facility where Tony didn't need to do anything but be there for support and stuff, we determined that it would be a fantastic time for him to go back to Arkansas and get all the rest of our stuff that we had still in the other house. Finally he got back to Calif. and shortly after that, I got to back home forever!!

So, thats my story. Why I've been gone so long and where I've been. I still do physical therapy every week which really works my butt off!! I am pretty much amazed how much I acomplish. I've always admired the various therapist's I've known much of my adult life for different reasons, but now, I truly have a lot of admiration for them. I'm busy doing my thing as like anyone else does. I'm looking forward to spring and getting into my garden again.