Finally A Nice Day Out

We are finally going to be having a decent weekend for a change. Yesterday was the first day we had seen the sun in about 7-10 days. I think I am going to go shopping and buy some outdoor plants.

I am typing this blog from my own very new laptop!! I have been looking and looking for almost a full year for a laptop and we are finally able to afford one. I didn't go for one that cost thousands of dollars, but just your basic dual core 1gig memory and 80 gig harddrive. It is a hp pavillion dv6000 in case you want to look it up. Now if I can only get my wireless internet to work, I will be a happy camper. I think I am going to have to buy a new router.

Kat turned 15 on Thursday. Cor was working nights so I got my mom to order chinese food and the kids and I had Katie's birthday supper at mom and dad's house. It was great for the kids to spend time with their grandparents with all of the scares we have had in the last few months(more on my dad later).

So Kat's birthday party is today. We let her invite a ton of kids here for an afternoon and night party. A few of her girlfriends will be spending the night so I think it will be a verrrry long night but that is okay. We have bought 4 dozen hotdogs/buns, 4 bags of chips, 4 bottles of pop, 48 cans of pop and a huge slab cake. I hope that is enough.

My dad came home from the hospital last Wednesday, May 16. He seemed to be okay when he got home but as the days went by, he seemed to lose more and more of his speech. My dad's sister (who used to be a nurse many moons ago) made mom worry more by either calling and giving bad new or expressing her worry to the point of madness. On Monday, the holiday, my aunt called me to talk and expressed her worry about him. I let her talk because I figured she needed to vent and was okay with that. The next day, I am at work and my aunt calls me there. She had been talking to a speech therapist that she knew at the hospital and after describing my dad's symptoms, the therapist said that dad should be taken back the hospital. So she tried to call my parents and after getting no answer, she called me at work. She was at the point of going over to my parents and sitting there until they got home so that she could personally escort them to the hospital. So I get off the phone with her and try my parents house to get no answer. I call my brother and he said that when he talked to mom that morning, dad was out in the garage riding his stationary bike. Of course, I start to think really bad thoughts and start to panic. I call my boss and tell her what is going on. I tell her that I am thinking that my dad might be back in the hospital. So she tells me to phone the hospital and then to phone her back when I am done. So I phone the hospital and find out that dad was indeed there but he was also released already. So I phone my boss back but her phone is busy and I try and work for a bit until she gets off the phone. A few minutes later my boss comes into my office. She tells me that while I was phoning the hospital, she tried calling mom and dads house again and of course they are home by that time. My boss tells mom why she is calling (they have met several times before) and my mom gets very angry and blames my aunt on all of it. I can understand why she got mad but on the other hand, I think I did overreact just a tad. My boss says that I didn't overreact at all and I am so grateful that she has really big shoulders for me to cry on. I have used her shoulders a few times in the past, more often in the past couple of months.

So, the result of my dad being back in emergency is that they did another cat scan and saw that his brain is still a bit swollen and he still has some fluid left over from the surgery they had to do before. Instead of re-admitting him (thank goodness) they put him back on steroids to help reduce the swelling. By that night, when we went over for a visit, he was already improving. I will keep you updated on how he is doing.

Tomorrow after all of Kat's friends go home, we are off to do a 5km fun walk to help support liver transplant. My bosses' daughter and my co-worker had a liver transplant when she was very young. She is now twenty something, engaged to be married but unfortanately is sick with something they still haven't been able to diagnose and she has been unable to work. We are all praying that she will come out of it okay. So this walk should be fun, maybe not the actually walking, but since a bunch of us from work will be doing this, at least it will be entertaining. Our whole family is doing the walk so it also gives us a chance to do something as a family.

There is more I want to write, but I need to get off my butt and help clean the house before we get overrun with teenagers.

When we first moved into this house back in 1999, this tree barely reached the top of the fence. Now, although a very common tree around here, we are very proud to see it getting as big as it is. At this time of the year it is nice to have some color in the yard besides brown and green.

Thanks to everyone about the good wishes for my dad, but unfornately he has had a set back.

Last Monday night, my mom phoned to chat after my scrapbooking class. She mentioned that she was quite worried about my dad because he was unable to finish his sentances. He had just been diagnosed with a sinus infection and I thought it might be just the pressure and the pain that was causing him to be that way.

The next day on my way home from work, my mom called me on my cell phone to say that they had admitted dad back into the hospital. I guess at lunch time he was not able to say 2 or 3 words together to form a sentence. So my mom took him to St. Pauls to find out what the problem was. While there, they did a cat scan to find out that my dad had a bleed on his brain. They figured it was from the heavy duty heart medication he had to be taking that caused this.

So they took my dad by ambulance to University Hospital where they deal with these sorts of problems. When we went to see him that evening, he seemed fine to me and we thought that he would just be in for the night for observation.

The next day when my mom went to see him, he had gotten worse. I took Shorty and Boo to see him after supper (Kat had seen him the night before) and although he understood everything we said to him, he was unable to have a conversation with the kids. Unfortunatley I didn't realize how bad he was and if I had known, I would not have taken the kids with me. Shorty didn't seem too upset about it but Boo was in tears when we left.

From there he just seemed to go downhill. Although he was on a medications to clot the blood and to decrease the swelling, it didn't seem to be working. By Thursday night although he really wanted to communicate with us he was unable to do so. Evertime he tried to say something, he would get very frustrated and just end up going "shit". If it wasn't that, he would just go "whatever". The new plan was to do another CT scan to see where he was at.

On Friday they did the cat scan and by 4:00pm, they phoned my mom to get her consent to operate on him. He was on the list to have surgery that evening to drill two burr holes in his head to remove the excess blood that had pooled on his brain. We went to the hospital that night to see him but left before the surgery started as he was very tired and spent most the visit asleep.

Dad didn't end up having his surgery until Saturday night at around 11pm. We went and saw him yesterday afternoon and were quite worried because his surgery had to keep getting bumped due to other emergencies that kept coming in. But we were assured that he would get his surgery as soon as they were able to do it.

Last night we went to a friends birthday party who is turning 40. At first I really didn't want to go because I thought I would be too worried about my dad. But I am so glad that we did as it was very comforting sitting with friends and talking about it and also everything else. I had instructed my mom to call me on my cell as soon as she heard any news and around 10pm I called her to see if she had heard anything. An hour later she called me back to say that they had taken him into surgery. At 2am she phoned to let me know that he was out and awake and alert. He had some decreased ability in his right hand and that seemed to be impoving. He was able to talk but I don't know at this point if he is able to form sentances. We will be going up this morning to see him.

It has been a very long week for me. On Monday, Cor had left for a 5 day course in Edmonton and didn't come home until Friday afternoon. On Monday night, about 1/2 block from our house a man was stabbed. He didn't die but it is still scary to have that happen so close to home.

I am so glad that last week is over but I wish it was Friday again so that I could have a day or two of rest. This week coming up will be a very busy one as I have something going on every night until Friday. The good news is that next weekend is a long weekend and I will be able to relax for 3 whole days!!! Kat leaves this Wednesday for a band trip to Moose Jaw to play in the Kinsmen Band and Coral Festival. She is really looking forward to it and has been practicing her clarinet all weekend. They will be playing a Medley from "Shrek". The fact that this trip is costing me $255.00 wasn't all that fun, but hey, what can you do?

I want to wish you a "Happy Mother's Day" and hope that you have a great day!!!