7:30 p.m. last night my grandma (who lives with my mom) called to tell me that something wasn't right with my mom. Now that isn't saying much since my mom has a lot of issues that I will not dive into here. I asked what was going on and she said she didn't know, but she (my mom) was crying, said she couldn't talk and then took off. I tried calling her to no avail (again, normal for her not to answer my calls).
8:00 p.m. I called my brother to let him know something was up with mom, but I wasn't sure what. He has much better luck getting her to answer his calls (this is because he just shoots the shi* with her and I call her out on her issues black and white). So he tries to get a hold of her.
9:30 p.m. I get a voicemail from my brother (my phone had been left upstairs to charge) and he found my mom by for some crazy but awesome reason he thought to call Valley Hospital. There she was. She had driven herself there - she was have excruciating headaches for the last two weeks and now was having problems speaking. They triage her immediately, get a cat scan and see that she has severe bleeding on the left side of her brain and instantly transport her by ambulance to Harborview for possible emergency surgery.
10:00 p.m. My mom calls me on her cell phone from the ambulance (ha) and informs me of what is going on. I tell her to have someone call me immediately if they do surgery tonight. I stay up for hours waiting by the phone (as does my brother)...nothing.
6 a.m. this morning my brother calls Harborview - they will be doing surgery today, but not sure when. A lot of swelling in her brain and a lot of blood. The source? We don't know. Possible stroke, but they aren't thinking so. Aneurysm? Probably not, would've killed her already most likely. Head trauma? Most likely. Apparently (unbeknownst to my brother and I) my mom has been having problems with falling when she gets up in middle of the night to go to the bathroom and 3 times in the last two weeks has hit her head hard on furniture in her room. But why is she falling?? That is the million dollar question.
11:00 a.m. today, my brother calls me to let me know surgery would be at noon and he was stuck in Olympia. I called my mom and she was obviously upset and scared - I let her know I was leaving work now and would be there before she goes in at noon. I bolted out of work and realized that Harborview was only 7 miles from my work - yahoo, not bad - took me 15-20 minutes! Got up to her ICU room and watched her doze on and off from her meds and froze my butt off sitting under the a/c vent!
2:00 p.m. nurse FINALLY starts to take her down to the pre-op room, I follow of course. I say a
"see ya later" and a "you'll be fine" and off she went and off to the waiting room I went. They have a monitor in the room to let you know where your patient is in their surgery based on a code they give you.
3:30 p.m. monitor finally changes to "Surgery Began" - so I sit and sit and sit.
6:15 p.m. she's out of surgery and in recovery. Dr. reports that they had to drill a couple holes into her scull to drain the blood and actually had to remove a small piece of her skull to alleviate some of the swelling, but they have already been able to put the piece back. She's awake, responding to commands and doing OK! I won't see her until tomorrow...
So again, the million dollar question is what is causing the bleeding and IF it's the head trauma due to her falling - why is she falling? I will be running up to the hospital on a lunch break tomorrow to take her purse and cell phone back and check in on her. My brother and grandma will be going to visit tomorrow night and I'll go again this weekend sometime.
No ETA on how long she'll be in or what rehab will be needed after...I pray it's not much. She just started a new job 2 weeks ago and is very stressed about losing it. They are being very nice and are very worried for her, so hoping to God they hold her job for her and let her recover without making her feel rushed.
So that has been my last 24 hours in a nutshell...
