the new normal

2 weeks ago today was the day mom went into the hospital. 2 weeks ago at 10:05 I was getting ready to try to get some sleep in the recliner in her room while mom coughed and struggled with her breathing all night long. I had probably just finished having the last real conversation I'll have with her here on earth. Tonight she and dad were going to be spending the night at Calloway Gardens with my kids. They had started the tradition of taking them there to look at the christmas lights 2 years ago. I accidently called her cell the other day instead of their home number. So I heard her outgoing message. You just never know when something is going to be "the last" thing. The last conversation, the last lunch together, the last trip, the last laugh, the last hug.
I'm going to bed.

Service Times

Viewing -
Friday, Dec. 12
6:00pm-8:00pm
HM Patterson & Son Funeral Home
1157 Old Canton Rd NE
Marietta, GA 30068

Funeral -
Saturday, Dec. 13
2:00pm
Wesley Chapel United Methodist Church
4495 Sandy Plains Rd
Marietta, GA 30066

In lieu of flowers, please send donations to:
M.U.S.T. Ministries
PO Box 1717
Marietta, GA 30061

...today

Mom died at about 4:30 this afternoon. We were all there and it was peaceful. We hope to have visitation at Patterson Funeral Home on Old Canton Hwy tomorrow evening and the funeral on Saturday afternoon. I'll let you know the final plans tomorrow morning.

Today

Today is the day Mom will see Jesus.

She commented last monday about how that "wouldn't be so bad" and had just found a note written to her by her grandmother, "ma" where she talked about seeing her in heaven. The wonderful doctors talked with us this morning and praise God for the unity in our decision to take her off the ventilator. They will be giving her morphine now and she won't feel any pain from now through eternity. After learning what the doctors predicted about her "recovery" and knowing the way Pulmonary Fibrosis will progress even if she does recover, we just couldn't imagine that she would want to suffer for weeks or months. Dad is doing OK. He says he will be doing much better than everyone expects because they've been talking about this for a long time. He welcomes visitors, but my own request is just that we try to limit visits to a few minutes at a time. Thank you for your prayers and your compassion and your love for my family. We love and are truly thankful for you. I'm blown away by my sadness, but I know it would be even more devastating to watch her live any longer.
I'll let you know later today about the arrangements we'll make for her funeral.

Wednesday Night

Today mom was about the same. Desiree, Darryl and Brandon are all in town tonight so tomorrow at 9 we will meet with Dr Boyce all together.
Hopefully I'll have more to post tomorrow. :)
Shea

tuesday

today Dr. Boyce says things look a little better. Still not out of the woods, for sure. They are talking about the possibility of putting in a tracheotomy by the end of the week. But they are now talking about the end of this week and referring to next week. Last week they just referred to the beginning of THIS week. She continues to look more like herself, but is still sedated.

monday the 8th

Today mom's condition remains about the same, but her kidney levels are continuing to improve. She looks MUCH better than she did at the end of last week. Much better. Her color is better and there's not nearly as much swelling. Her temperature is a little low due to the dialysis but apparently that's normal. She opened her eyes during one visit and I was able to give her a quick update on the where-abouts of everyone. Eric made a couple of CDs for her with her favorite music so we turned that on "repeat", hoping it would help her relax until she went back to sleep. The nurse was trying to decrease her sedation medicine some while keeping her sedated JUST enough. The nurses keep commenting on how she's really a fighter and becomes alert before they think she will or before she needs to. They don't know mom. They were able to decrease her oxygen to 55% today, which is good. Desiree will come tomorrow afternoon, Brandon and Darryl will be here on Wednesday. Hopefully around that time, we'll know more about her prognosis.
Thanks for loving mom and the rest of us!

sunday night

Sorry for the late post....left this morning at 8:45 and just now walked in the door.
today mom isn't worse. So that's good. She might actually be better! The dialysis seems to be working and much of the swelling has gone down. She's sedated heavily and didn't wake up today, that we know of. She seems much more relaxed and "comfortable", if that's possible.
My kids went home with Granna and Papa (eric's parents) today and so I'll be spending most of tomorrow and tuesday at the hospital.
I've been completely overwhelmed by the compassion of our friends through this. Thank you so much for your love and prayers....for being just what we need in this time.

saturday night

No real change....Praying the words to this hymn tonight:

O come, O come Emmanuel ("God with Us"), And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!

O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer our spirits by thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night and death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!

O come Thou Wisdom from on high, and order all things far and nigh;
To us the path of knowledge show and cause us in her ways to go.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!

O come, Desire of nations, bind In one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease, and be Thyself our King of peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel!

Saturday afternoon

today they started mom on Dialysis and they say it's going as expected. Dad says she appears the same as yesterday.
Thanks for your prayers.
Dad went in this morning and several folks from Wesley Chapel are hanging out with him today and tomorrow morning.
Eric is working this afternoon/night and tomorrow so I'm home with the kids. I think we're going to take a drive tonight to look at lights with some hot cocoa.

friday night

We talked to Dr. Fisher, my parents' family doctor of many, many years. He put things in perspective for us. He said her body has an "invader" and the invader has the advantage right now. He expects it will have the advantage for 4 or 5 days. During this time is when we need to gather the troops and begin the battle. That's the ventilator, steroids, antibiotics, dialysis (if needed).....After 5-7 days, ONLY THEN will we see if her body is going to be able to fight it. That's when things start turning around if they're going to. I think I have been hoping and expecting to see gradual daily improvement but after talking with Dr. Fisher, I'm realizing he is confirming what the other doctors have been saying all along: We shouldn't expect anything for a week. My dad practically had a spring in his step after hearing this from Dr. Fisher. He really respects him and it was comforting to know that he thinks we're doing the right thing and that the doctors are making good calls.
We told mom we had talked with him and dad said, "Babe, Dr. Fisher thinks all we're doing here is worthwhile". Mom just slowly nodded her head. I told her that he expected it would be at least 4 days (I couldn't bring myself to tell her 5-7) before we should expect big changes. She sighed and sort of slumped her shoulders. I'm sure 4 days of this seems like forever to her. At about 8:30 tonight, she was resting much better than she had all day though, due to the nurse increasing her sedation. I hope she sleeps all night.
On another note, my brother, Brandon is sick with some sort of stomach bug. Sorry Bran.....I hope you are feeling better really soon.

kidney

OK. So now her kidneys aren't functioning well and so they are giving her lasix to help with that. She's retaining LOTS of fluids. Very swollen. She may need a couple rounds of dialysis to get them working again. The nurse said that if it were her mother she would try it through the weekend and see if the kidneys started working again because she said although I might not realize it because I don't see this every day, she does have a chance of bouncing back. If the kidneys are working, it gives them time to help her bounce back. Dr. Boyce will be back on monday. The nurse says that he is very straight-forward and will not drag this out longer than necessary.
It's so hard to see her like this. so hard.

Friday Noon Update

This morning mom looks about the same as she did last night. This is really awful and no way to live. She's so swollen from all the fluid she's retaining. She's been awake a lot because her blood pressure has been low so they can't sedate her as much as we'd like. However, her BP is a little higher this morning so they just increased her sedation. Mom said she would like to sleep more. Each time we visit she wants an update of where everyone is and how dad is doing. She would like music so when dad comes in a few minutes he's going to bring some of her favorite CDs and a cd player. Dad did come and spend the night with me last night but he forgot his mask-thing for his sleep apnea so he didn't sleep that well. He's going home now to his house to get a few things, including his medication.
I'm hoping to speak with the doctor as soon as he's done in another ICU. His notes this morning said that her Xray was "slightly worse" than yesterday.
Thanks for praying for us. Pray she'll be able to be comfortable and peaceful and that we'll have wisdom as we make different decisions....and for Dr. Boyce, her doctor.
I'll post another after I talk to Dr. Boyce.
If you want to comment or leave a note for me to read for her, please leave it here instead of emailing me directly, if you can. That way I can just print it all out at once.
Thanks,
Shea

new pictures of eli

cute pictures of Eli at our friend's house. this is her daughter, Morgan, with him. :)

Update about mom

Hi everyone. As many of you probably know, mom's not doing well and is in ICU at St. Joseph's. I'm going to try to post updates here on my blog to try to streamline my conversations. We are doing OK. Dad is doing OK. The kids are doing OK. Right now we are set with meals through tomorrow night and childcare is taken care of through next tuesday afternoon. I'm tryin gto balance my days and nights at the hospital so I'm not away from the kids during all their awake hours.
Mom started feeling bad the friday after thanksgiving. (we all had a wonderful thanksgiving together at my brother Darryl's house in Charlotte) Over the weekend she continued to become more sick and monday went in to St.Joes' for an already-scheduled broncoscopy (sp?). They kept her after that and I spent that night and tuesday with her in the hospital and her breathing was getting worse and worse by the hour. At one point she sat up in the bed and lay back down and was gasping for breath for the following 30 minutes. She needed more and more oxygen and tuesday they decided she needed 100% oxygen and they moved her down to the PICU. She has pneumonia and they have identified a bacteria that they are fighting, but her xRays kept getting worse. Wednesday morning the doctor said he can't be sure if the bigger problem is her Pulmonary Fibrosis (a disease she's been diagnosed with for about a year....it is a progressive disease that gets really awful in the end. People live anywhere from 1 to 18 years with it) or the pneumonia. He didn't think she would be able to continue on the oxygen for more than 24 hours, so they put her on a ventilator yesterday around lunchtime. This gives him more time to work on the pneumonia with the host of antibiotics, steroids and other drugs she's taking. He says if the problem is pneumonia, she has a chance of pulling out of it. If the problem is the fibrosis, there's not much they can do but make her feel more comfortable. So today she's about the same. Her blood pressure has been low and so they can't sedate her as much as they'd like. She's agitated and trying to communicate by writing on a clipboard whenever anyone is visiting so the nurses are really wanting to limit the visitors to just a few minutes every couple of hours.
I'm going down there tonight to see her and be with my dad. Hopefully he'll come home and spend the night here tonight. It will take a couple more days before we know how she's progressing because it's slow.
Thank you so much for your prayers. If you think about it pray for wisdom and discernment for the doctors and for us as we might have to make hard decisions.
The kids were able to see her yesterday before she was put on the ventilator and that was really good for all of them. They're processing it all in their own ways, just like all of us are.
Thanks so much!