Update on Dan's mom

This is the first chance I have had to give an update on Dan's mom. We took off on Thursday morning for the UP and got up here about 4 pm and were able to see Julie (Dan's mom). It has been alot of surgeries and a lot of ups and downs. She is still in the hospital and will most likely remain until past Christmas.

The first surgery was Wed afternoon to determine where the blockage was and to try and break it up. Unsuccessful. The second surgery was late Wed. night and the doctor was pretty confident that he was successful at removing the clot. He said that the clot had not just appeared that it had been there for quite some time and it just got to the point where it was causing pain due to pressure. Things on Thursday seemed to be going well and we thought she might be able to come home the next day. So Dan and I were making the 1 1/2 hr commute each day, hoping that she would be able to come home on Friday. We called on Friday morning and they said that there was no pulse in the top of her foot and that there was more blockage. So at 11:00 am they were going to do an agiogramto determine where the blockage was. Shortly following that procedue they took her into another surgery. We though this surgery was to put a stint in the artery, since it either kept collapsing or clotting, but apparently they went in to remove more blockage. We were finally able to see her at 7:00 on Friday night. So we spent about 1 hour shopping in the area and 3 1/2 more hours hanging out in the waiting room since the new unit that she was taken to didn't allow kids at all. She was pretty out of it on Friday night, but once they were able to relieve some of the pain caused by laying completetly still for so long, I think she was able to relax.

At this point we had to make the decision whether or not to keep driving back and forth. We didn't get home until 10:30 pm last night and Josiah won't sleep in the car right now. Thank goodness he is such a good rider though. He just watches his movies and plays with his toys. At any rate, even though financially it is going to be hard on us, the driving and gas back and forth was just taking its toll. Julie's neighbor then told us that the hotels in the area gave a good discount if you had a person in the hospital, so that is exactly what we did. Spending our entire time in the car and hospital waiting area is tough on a 2 year old. So now, Dan can come and go as he needs and he's only a few miles away. And Josiah and I can go swimming and run the halls. Much better.

Today: we called to check on her today and she was in quite a bit of pain in her leg now. Apparently the incision was bleeding into the surrounding tissue and fluid was starting to build up. They were going to go in and do a quite procedure to clean out the area but weren't planning on doing anything. However they found another clot. This is the 4th surgery now to remove the clots. Here's the kicker: the doctor told us last night that he would try and remove the clot 1 more time and if that didn't work he would give up. What the crap! What kind of cockamamy dr tells teh family that he was just going to give up. The guy seemed drunk and what we know of dr's I wouldn't be surprised. It was the first time he had given us the time of day and he would hardly do that. He basically said he didn't know what was causing it and he didn't know what else to do. Great! Now that 4th surgery has taken place, now what. No one is telling us anything.

So here we sit in the hotel, having no idea what is going to happen, how long she might be there, what might happen to her leg. he pretty much said that she would continue to have problems and eventually lose her leg. So that is what's rolling around in our head. We don't know about care for her after the hospital, shoot we don't have any idea how long she will be in the hospital.

So many unknowns and we are both so emotionally unstable. Because not only don't we know anything about Julie and her situation. I go back home to a huge unknown. I don't have a job. So here we are, alone in the UP, trying to be there for Julie and trying to cope with our own situation. This will not be one of the best Christmas's we have had. But at least we are able to be here for Julie. She lives just far enough away from all of her friends and family and it is at just the wrong time of year that we have been her only visitors besides her pastor.

Neither Dan, nor I have cell phone coverage up here, so if you want to contact us you can call 906-225-1393 room 109. Just try and not call during the afternoon cause Josiah will be taking his naps. I know most people probably won't even be reading this blog until into the new year, but who knows, we just may be here that long. I will try and keep you updated on Julie's progress.

On the up side for us...Josiah loves to swim and we had so much fun in the pool.