August 12, 2009

• Bionic mama

   

  Mom had the pace maker implanted last night in the 8 o'clock hour.  She'll get a temporary ID to use in case of travel or emergency in the future, and in about 6 weeks she'll get a permanent.  This is good cuz on the Jamaica trip she beeped and was stopped and swiped with the metal detector wand, and you know she got teased by the whole family for beeping. 

  I got to see mom yesterday around 11:30am and spent the rest of the day w/her until the icky night nurse kicked me out at 10:30.  Some stupid-ass hospital policy about not letting a platoon of Cubans in an ICU room thru the wee hours of the night.

  Visiting hours start at 9am .  I awoke around 7:07am and the stress and toils of everything going on had me wondering where the hell I was, I didn't recognize my own room for a moment.  Once I got my bearings and got my crap together, went to mom's and checked her voice messages, returned a call for her and went to the neighbor's to let her know what is going on (she had called mom 2x concerned that she hadn't seen her in a couple of days.  Now, my sistah tells me she received a call from mom's other neighbor wondering what's going on . . . the neighborhood is abuzz. 

  I dreaded coming in . . . . it was the day after his implant that I could tell my grandfather had suffered a stroke . . . I feared the same.

  After returning the calls and talking to the neighbor, taking out mom's trash (today is pick-up day); I finally made it in around 9:45am and she was wide awake and sitting up on the recliner chair.  The icky nurse got her up and out of bed before 5:30am and she's bee up all day.  She had her breakfast w/the hard as stone baby bagel and had a nice soup and 1/2 sandwich lunch. 

  She sounds and looks good.  The cardio who implanted the pace maker has discharged her, the other cardiologist who administers meds and other stuff hasn't discharged her yet.  He wants to keep her in for another day to stabilize her BP.  Mom's BP is high (she routinely takes BP, Chol and Sugar meds).  Once they get the BP stable, they'll probably discharge her.  So, I've been standing behind her shouting "Boo!" from time to time cuz I'd really like to keep her here one more night just to be sure she is getting proper attention.

   

  Oh and get this . . . after the procedure, the cardio/surgeon came out to tell us that the procedure had gone well, everything was great, he was very pleased . . . oh, and is she clausterphobic?

  When mom started coming out of her sleep, she started screaming and flailing her arms, they asked her if she's Ok "yeah", if she's in any pain "no, I'm good" . . . they removed the face mask and she took a deep breath, sighed and thanked them.  She reached out and shook everyone's hand in the OR and thanked them individually.

  It turns out that mom was dreaming.  She had a vivid dream that a family member (doesn't know which) had won the lottery and she was sorting out who to help financially.   The deal was that her dream wasn't over, she wasn't done sorting and she needed to finish her dream before the anesthesia would wear off and she could tell it was wearing off.  It was very important she got back to her dream.

  She remembers screaming and shouting loudly, to the point that she came out w/a hoarse voice.

   

  Oooh, just got the news, she's being moved shortly to room 3010 and spending the night after all.  Yeeayy.

   

   

  • 1:17 pm
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