The weekend…

Golly!

Saturday morning dawned sunshiney full of potential. After going to the bank for Kevin, dropping Brielle off to spend some time with her aunt, getting gas and coffee, we arrived at our first service project. Our church was doing scads of projects all over town, ranging from planting flowers to welcoming refugees to packing food boxes, over 500 members of our church were doing our best to be the hands and feet of Jesus. We opted to help with a free car wash. Luckily, we didn’t have any customers at first and they needed someone to volunteer their vehicle to get the ball rolling.

Um. ME!! We live on a gravel road and haven’t had rain for two weeks. Pretty sure my van could use a wash again by now–but it was a huge blessing to have it washed. I got to talk to some friends I don’t see often enough too. As we were leaving, Aviana said that it was the most fun she had in her whole life!

Next we met up with some other friends to put together birth kits for moms in Papua New Guinea. 1 in 7 moms in rural Papua New Guinea dies in childbirth. Today. In 2012. Can you imagine?! A friend found out about Bloggers for Birth Kits and organized our meet up. It was another fabulous opportunity to hang with friends and  serve others.

Then it was time for lunch at the farmer’s market. We were all pretty wilted by this time so I only bought 4 quarts of strawberries. We talked with our hooping friend and headed home.

On the way, I realized I really wanted to implement some of the ideas my landscaper friend suggested, so I hooked into The Green Thumbers and bought some plants. They are so awesome there–the manager walked me around helping me find what I wanted, offering tips and suggestions all the while and carried them to the front for me, and then someone loaded them into my van. Jessica loves being spoiled.

When I got home, I got the baby down for his nap, started unloading the mountains of stuff that had somehow accumulated in the van since the last time I cleaned out the van (which I think may have been the day before!), and decided to try and find my phone since I had forgotten to take it with me.

I found it.
I checked my messages.
My aunt had called.
My mom was in the ER!
She was in severe respiratory distress and after having gone to urgent care, was transferred by ambulance to the hospital!

I didn’t even know which hospital and all my calls to both my dad and mom wouldn’t go through.

I called Kevin and continued to try and stay busy (and around here there is always work for willing hands. Hint, Hint). After what seemed a really long, long wait, I finally got a call from my dad telling me where they were and asking me to come down to hospital. I called my SIL asking her to bring Brielle home and if she would stay with the other kids and asked Kevin to call his mom to see if she would maybe come over after work or even get off work early to help, so he could continue to get the crop in.

My mom was in bad shape. She couldn’t get her breath at all even after being on oxygen and a breathing treatment or two. Just the exertion of moving to the edge of the bed and trying to stand would send her into spasms of coughing and panic and not being able to breathe. Then she couldn’t get control of her breathing again for an eternity.

She was admitted to the Pulmonary Unit and I stayed with my parents the whole time. I was so thankful that my children were taken care of so I could be a support to them.  My mom had even felt earlier in the day like “it’s a good thing I’m right with God because if it’s my time to go, I’m ready.” I cannot imagine losing my mom right now. She’s only 58 and I still need her. My dad left about 8 as he was exhausted from all the stress.

I stayed at the hospital until my aunt arrived after an 8 hour drive around 11. I was so tired driving home (we are about 30ish minutes away) I thought I would have to pull over and take a cat nap, but I made it.

My MIL had taken the children to her house so I got to sleep in until 8 this morning. Kevin wanted to go up to the hospital with me, so I messed around looking for a lost library book, we planted my plants and then headed up. She had had one more “episode” this morning but was doing really well. My dad went to church so we all just kept company until Aunt Barb and Kevin took off early afternoon. Kevin went back to work and Aunt Barb had a graduation to attend.  I stayed until she was discharged. She has several prescriptions including a nebulizer.

What concerns me is if she has another episode while my dad is at work and why they never really figured out WHY this was happening. Of course it’s awesome she doesn’t have to stay in the hospital and I’m thankful she is doing better. It bothers me that they ruled out the big stuff (pneumonia), but didn’t find a trigger for this episode. It’s as if they feel like, ‘well, we’ve got her on some drugs and she’s pretty much fine now, so it’s good enough.’ What about making some lifestyle changes? What about alternatives to more medications? What about things we can do to not let it get like this again? Not even a consideration, apparently.

Kevin was almost done planting corn today when he had yet another breakdown. Stupid first year with a new planter anyway. So we’re four measly acres away from being done! We still have almost all the beans to do (I use the term “we” very loosely–kind of like “we’re pregnant”) but that isn’t as critical…

I’m tired and energized at the same time. How is that even possible? I need to get my booty to bed though, another big day of loving and living and learning tomorrow!