After my last post I walked back to the hospital. Stopping at the bookstore to buy my son KU onesie now that we will be living back in KS, gotta represent. After that I headed upstairs and met with my family. It had already been a couple hours and we hadn't heard anything but , you know, we were expecting 5+ hours in surgery so that wasn't surprising. I tried to lay on the floor with a blanket over my head and sleep but another family in the waiting room was just too loud. I wasn't mad, it's a public space, not only that but her husband was in a head on collision and may not make it. She and her family could be loud, but it meant I couldn't sleep. After a bit I crawled up onto two chairs I pushed together and briefly ( I'm talking 15 minutes ) fell asleep before I was woken up again. Eventually, I gave up. My dad and I talked a bit, but things continued on their tense, quiet path.
Me on the floor under my hospital issued blanket. Grumpy everybody is so loud.
After a bit a nurse comes in and gives us and update. Her elbow is done and there is at least an hour left on her shoulder. The time goes by slowly but eventually we're asked to wait in a small room to talk to the doctor.
This makes all of us nervous because every other time the doctor has just spoken to us in the waiting room. So, we sit and wait and finally in he comes with a smile on his face. Things went well, he shakes our hands and then I realize suddenly, with an inward chuckle, why he wanted us to in that room.
There is a whiteboard. He wanted to draw for us how he fixed her arm and where her bones had been broken. We sit and watch. He uses a black marker for her bones and a red marker for the breaks and explains how and why they put it back together the way they did. She has 4 plates in her arm now and I didn't even try to count the screws at the time ( hint: it was a lot ). There was even a piece of bone he left alone and he hopes will heal on it's own.
We thank him and go back to see her. Deb, my dad's favorite nurse, has already settled her flowers back on her bed next to her and is drawing some blood. My dad hugs me, then Deb, and heads outside. He's exhausted and tired but needed to see her before he could leave.
My sister stays for a bit. Things are still quiet and tense. She tells me she envies that I'm displaced from my home and just staying at the hospital and... Before I let her finish I interrupt her "you shouldn't" I snapped. She'd said something similar earlier in the day that had rubbed me wrong and her saying it again sets me off. She apologizes for upsetting me, she gets that I'm grumpy and upset and I tell her I just really didn't need to hear how much she envied me right then.
It's quiet for a few minutes until she tells me maybe she'll see me tomorrow and she walks out shaking her head and clearly upset. She texts me later and I'm a jerk who didn't respond because I'm still too upset to say anything nice.
I know she loves me and that her mom is in the hospital too and everybody is tense and upset. Honestly I wish both of us had handled the situation better but it's over now. I'll text her before I go to bed tonight, as soon as I know I won't instigate a fight with her. Neither of us need that.
In the midst of my minor blow out with my sister Ande, my good friend, texts me to ask if I still want to go to dinner and my answer is absolutely yes. She heads this way and right after my sister leaves, I leave too.
She picks me up and we drive a couple of blocks to Blue Koi, an Asian restaurant that she's been too and has been featured on TV Shows. We order bubble tea and way too much food and we talk and eat and I vent. My sanity is temporarily restored afterwards.
Crunchy tempura veggies, dumplings, and seafood soup - YUM!
Currently I'm back in my mom's room. Nothing going on tonight other than her resting. Tomorrow may be another really big day when they try to get her extubated. I hope my mom is still in there. I need to go home on Friday. To lay in bed with my boys and cuddle. To bribe a shoulder rub from my husband and see my cats. My mom is a strong woman, once she's awake she can do a lot of her own fighting at the hospital but while she's sedated so heavily like this nobody is here to speak for her if I'm not. That's why I'm here. If she can wake up and breathe on her own this week I can go home and rest a little easier. Maybe that's selfish, but everyone is selfish sometimes. Plus I want her to get better for both of us - really all of us - because my entire family loves her.
Get better mom.
One of our favorite nurses decorated her door with flowers while she was in surgery.
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