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Monday, 13 July 2009

Scary weekend

I know it's been a year since I've posted anything, but this weekend is definately post-worthy. So, Aug. 1st will be 1 year since Stu & I have been renting a house in Neb. and my mom finally committed to coming for a visit. They got here about 6 p.m. Friday and Stu grilled hamburgers, then we went to see Johnny Depp's gangster movie. We got home about 11 and headed to bed. About 3:30 a.m., this loud sound startled me awake and my first thought was Stu was sleep walking and ran into the wall. But then I heard him say "What do you need Mike?" (Mike is my step-dad and the loud sound was him knocking on our bedroom door.)  Mike said, "I need to take Cheryl to the hospital." I went to the living room and my mom was sitting in the chair with her eyes closed. I asked what was wrong and she said her chest hurt. I got dressed and we headed to the hospital, which was luckily only about 10 minutes away (especially when you run red lights!) Within probably 90 seconds of arriving at the ER, they had her in a room surrounded by 5 nurses. Within maybe another 60 seconds, they had an EKG report and when they laid it on the counter, the only word I understood was "abnormal." I made sure to tell them that her mom (my grandma) died from heart disease at the age of 50 because she left that little detail out when they were asking her questions. Anyway, they gave her some nitroglycerin and it made her feel better. They told her she needed to stay overnight and she didn't like that one bit.  Come to find out, she woke up with the pains at 1:30 and it took Mike 2 hours to talk her out of driving to Ark City! She wanted to go home for some damn reason. I told him I would have been livid!!!! There are 3 hospitals in Lincoln. How much sense would that have made?!?! And why did he let the "discussion" go on for 2 hours? I would have said get in the car or I'm calling 911 and I would have given her exactly 3 seconds to make a decision before calling 911.
Anyway, about 6:30, a nurse practitioner with the Neb. Heart Institute came in. It was so comforting to know that they had heart experts on staff all night, even on weekends. You would never have that kind of staff available at a small town hospital. Anyway, she said a cardiologist would be in between 7 - 8 to talk to her, but she thought his recommendation would probably be a heart cath. That was terrible news as my grandma died while undergoing that procedure. My mom's eyes welled up with tears (mine too!), but she held it together pretty well and just said she wanted to avoid that if possible because of what happened to my grandma. This nurse didn't look like she was even 30 yet and said, "I've never heard of that, when did that happen?" I said 1980 and of course got the "technology has advanced in the last 30 years" speech. I just told her that exploring all other options before having to resort to the heart cath would be preferrable because of what happened to my grandma. So, the cardiologist (who was very attractive, by the way) came in and said based on the 2 EKG's, etc., there's no need to do a stress test, etc. and she really needed to have a heart cath ASAP. When we told him what happened to grandma, we got the advancements in technology speech again, but he gave it in a very reassuring way. I just said, I know to you it's a routine procedure, but to us it's a procedure that kills people. He was very understanding and said some very nice things and actually got my mom to agree to it without any argument. I know she must have been terrified and I was too! When they wheeled her out of the room, the nurse said, "Do you want to say goodbye?" WHAT?!? I know she meant well, but she didn't need to make it sound so final!!!!! I said, no, I'll say see you in a little bit. My mom smiled and I said, "See ya, wouldn't want to be ya" and she said, "No shit!" and I thought those are the last words I'll ever hear my mom say!
The procedure only took about an hour or so and she was never completely put under, so when they brought her back to the room, she was alert and talking and I was so relieved and happy! The first thing she said was "I told you I wasn't having a heart attack" in this "I told you so" tone. But the nurse said, "You were well on your way." She had a 95% blockage in one of her arteries so they put a stint in. The cardiologist came back in yesterday morning and told her she did the right thing and he knew it must have been difficult because of the memories she's been living with of the way her mom died. That was such a nice thing to say! He was awesome! Then, he told her she could go home and I said, "Home as in drive 300 miles today?" and he said it would be better if she could stay around another day or two. It was quite an argument to get her to stay with us one more day.  I would have been pissed for a number of reasons had she left. First of all, I don't think you need to be in a car driving miles and miles and miles from medical care in less than 24 hours from getting an stint put it! And, selfishly, I'm sick of always getting cheated out of spending time with her. It took a year to get her to even come visit and then this happened. (Not that there's ever a good time for this to happen!) I was very happy when she agreed to stick around one more day. So, after a couple of hour nap at our house, we went to church at noon, then went and got pedicures. I asked if she was up for some shopping because I wanted to find her an "I Nebraska" shirt and she said, "I don't think so, I'm never coming back here!" This was her first trip ever to Neb. and needless to say, she didn't have a very good experience! After our pampering, we went home and took another 2 hour nap, then went out to eat supper and took a tour of Lincoln.  They really like Larry the Cable Guy, so I looked up his address on the county property tax website and we went and found it. It's only about 5 miles from where we are living and I couldn't believe it when I realized that it is right across the road from a house we looked at buying! I wish it were still for sale. I would be kind of cool to say you had a famous neighbor.
Anyway, they left first thing this morning and should be getting back to A.C. any minute now.  Not exactly the way I planned to spend the weekend with my mom, but I am so glad she was here in a big town with a good hospital and lots of heart specialists at the ready!