First of all, I know it's been a while. I neglect my journal online as bad as I do this sometimes. . . .

I'll just say that my mom has been sick and wow boy was it touch and go.

first she went into the hospital on October 11. She was in for extremely low protein and potassium. She was retaining fluids, so they put her on a lasix drip. She went down to 127lbs. They let her out October 17th.

this is from my journal. . .

they let mom out of the hospital last night.

my uncle (her 1st baby brother) was there yesterday afternoon and she was "ok" but when Dad got there they gave her some medication, he said it was a reglan (something she's been on regularly for 5 years at least) and she was really confused.

He said she acted confused at the hospital but they went ahead and let her go home.

He called my granma to come stay with her while he went to get all her Rx meds. (antibiotic, potassium, appeitite stimulant and vitamin) Granma said she got up one time and said she needed to go to the bathroom, but turned into the kitchen. Granma asked her where she was going and she just wanted to go in there for a minute. Then she went back the couch. Granma said as soon as she sat down she realized that she needed to go, so Granma walked her to the bathroom.

She said she got up once and Granma asked her where she was going. She told her that she needed to go to the car for a minute. When granma asked what she needed she said "oh nothing" and sat back down.

When Dad got home, I called a little later and asked how she was. He said "she's messed up. She doesn't even know where she is." she asked a couple times and he told her "hon you are home"....and she'd say oh yeah yeah.

I called this morning to see how the night was like, he said it wasn't as rough as some of the nights he's had with her, but she was up and down and confused alot.

He was going to call their PCP when she opened this morning. I started crying when I was on the phone with him.

She is at my granma's house right now. My other uncle, we call him "Bubba" (her 2nd baby brother) helped Granma get her into the car and get her into granma's house. When I talked to her, I asked her how she was, and she said she was weak. I told her to let me talk to granma again and she said ok ok . . and then started talk to me again. I said "mom, can I talk to granma again" she said ok, ok bye and started to hang up the phone. I heard granma in the background say "honey she wants to talk to me again."

She knew she was at granma's when Granma asked her if she knew where she was. But there's other things that are confusing her.

I called Bubba (2nd baby brother) and asked how mom was doing a few minutes ago and he said "oh sleepy." when I asked if she was coherent he said not really. I asked what was going on and he said mom told him she took a sleeping pill. My mom doesn't have any sleeping pills in her house, so she couldn't have taken one.

I just scared the bejeezus out of Marc. He doesn't understand and I can't tell him anything, because I don't even know. I just told him mommy was having a sad day. He touched my face and said "don't cry mommy" and gave me a hug.

I'm struggling with this so bad right now. I'm afraid to go out there for the fear that she might not know the boys. That was the hardest thing on my dad was when the grandfather that raised him, didn't know who he was.

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next entry written about friday October 19th. They took her back the 18th..

when they took her back to the hospital they had to do so in an ambulance.

her ammonia (sp?) level was 146, high normal is 45. so therefore she was minimally responsive yesterday. she was taking swings at the nurses when they irritated her, so she is in soft restraints for now.

today, she barely moans when they move her.

she has an NG tube for lactulose they are putting into her stomach and gut to absorb some ammonia. Today her level was 96, still high, and they aren't sure why she hasn't become conscious yet. She was headed to CT when I left the hospital to let my boys take a nap.

I'm at my uncle's right now and fixing to go back to the hospital in a few minutes.

this is so i don't know what.. i'm just lost, i don't know what to do.

no biopsy results yet. we're pretty pissed at the dr. last night she never even stopped to talk to our family and the only thing she said this morning when she talked to dad was they don't know why her liver is failing. (they did a liver biopsy on her Tuesday the 16th)
~~~~~~~~~~~

when I went to let the boys take a nap, I had Marc record a voice memo for her on my phone. He said "i love you granna. better get ready soon (was trying to say get well soon lol). I love you granna. (then Yelled into the phone) I LOVE YOU GRANNA"

when I played that for her, she opened her eyes. This was the first time she had responded to anything at all yesterday. I said "you hear marc huh?" I asked her if she wanted to hear it again, and she nodded her head yes. I played it again and a tear rolled down her cheek.

by the time Dad left last night she was able to tell him she could hear him.

This morning (saturday 20th) she was awake and talking. She is kinda slow and slurry about it, but at least this is progress.

~~~~~~~~
she was well enough to go to a regular room this evening (sunday 21st). i'm home with my boys, but i'll return to elk city tuesday if need be.

i'm spending tomorrow with the boys and shawn since it's our 8th anniversary tomorrow.

She got to talk to Marc on the phone today, she was happy about that.

i'm hoping they'll transfer her up here to OKC. I cannot stand the dr that she has there. . .

she (the dr) was such a bitch to me this morning. I wanted to slap the crap out of her.

She came in, and mom is still having a little confusion, to be expected. She lost 3 whole days for gracious sake. She was talking to mom, telling her what they were going to do today and started to walk out without seeing if anyone had any questions.

I said "uh, do we know anything on the biopsy?" she turned around and shot daggers at me saying "it's sunday, pathology labs don't work on weekends". Oh ok. Excuse the fricken hell out of me.

1. small town hospital and I realize this.
2. she sent a sample to Baptist Hospital (top hospital in the US for transplants) they don't "close".
3. the stupid sample was sent to them at the very latest Wednesday morning.

I wanted to literally smack her in the face.

My dad actually had to corner her in the hallway the other day just to get the CT scan results. She wasn't going to tell us anything!

my cousins were in there at the time and when she left (2 of them btw work at Baptist Hospital) Jackie looked at me and said, "she's the kind of dr that talks only to the patient and forget the family".

I was fuming mad at the wench. The least she could have done was talked to us, I mean my god mom asked 2 times after she left what they were going to do to her today. What if we weren't in there when she came in???

She also doesn't know why mom's liver is shutting down.

All the blood tests point to obstruction (biliary obstruction) but the MRI and U/S don't show one at all

Terri (RN sister) explained that her blood tests aren't following any pattern at all. They usually follow a pattern for whatever the issue is. But hers don't, other than obstruction.

I walked in and I was fricken chopped liver she said "where's Marc"

They removed her NG tube today, and have her on PO lactulose and pain meds (WITHOUT tylenol)

Still no biopsy results.

her ammonia level this morning was 26. Her ammonia level wasn't high forlong enough to have too badly of an effect. her CT scan was normal. no damage whatsoever.

My sister (the RN) has taken care of patients like this before, so she basically told us, her consciousness and such would come back in chunks.

I just pray to God that she's like my mom before all this.
~~~~~~~the 25th
mom gets to come home sometime today.

they gave her two units of blood yesterday (wednesday) because she was anemic, but she has pernecious anemia, so it wasn't a surprise.

She is coming home on the lactulose until they can figure out why her liver isn't working.

~~~~~~~~26th
she is to take her lactulose 4 times a day and she is no longer allowed to have any tylenol whatsoever! thank the good lord for that dr's order!

I called her and she sounded good, tired but good. She told me that the dr dropped this bombshell on her today. . . . the dr has never seen a patient like my mom come out of a coma before. Mom is the first one, this particular dr has seen come out.

I swear on everything holy, that it was Marc's voice. Those two have a connection like no other, well except my dad and marc.

it's just crazy. she told me that and I said 'well no that doesn't scare the pee outta me at all'

but for now, she is getting better. her staph infection is going away and the blood helped too.

I'm going out there tomorrow night to take her car back to her, while I'm there I'm going to go do a big grocery shop for her. Dad's basically been eating at the hospital cafeteria for 2wks.

hopefully the dr up here in OKC will have some answers.

we are *still* waiting on the liver biopsy from Baptist Hospital. yes really.