It's been a long week

I'm a little worn out.  It started last week.  Every Tuesday, I take the boys to my grandma's house and we visit with her and my Aunt Frances.  It was normal in every way except that my grandma had a tooth removed that day by an oral surgeon.  She came home from the appointment and we all visited as usual. 

The next morning I get a call from my aunt asking me to take her to a doctor appointment because my grandma isn't feeling well enough to do it.  Once I say yes and get off the phone with her, I call my grandma to encourage her to go to the doctor and offer to take her.  She didn't want to at first, so I told her to think about it and call me back. 

She called me back a few minutes later and said she wanted to go.  So I got the boys ready and we went and picked her up.  The doctors were booked up so we went to Urgent Care down the hall.  That's when I hear her tell the receptionist that she thinks she might have had a TIA (Transient Ischemic Attack)!  She had not mentioned that to me or I wouldn't have given her a choice of going to the doctor!  All she had said was that she had been stumbling around since she woke up and that her leg wasn't doing what she wanted it to.

Well, that got people moving!  A nurse came out immediately to find out more information.  Then she went back and got a room ready in less than 5 minutes.  I waited in the waiting room with the boys.  Talk about fun stuff...keeping two boys occupied and out of other people's hair.  Actually, they weren't that bad.  Micah kept wanting to go find Grandma.  Caleb started getting fussy because it was his usual naptime.  He wouldn't fall asleep on me, so I finally went to the receptionist and told her I had to take the kids for a drive so Caleb would fall asleep.  I gave her my cell phone number and asked her to call me when Grandmother was ready. 

We were driving just a few minutes when Caleb fell asleep.  So I headed back to the doctor's office so I would be ready when she was done.  The timing worked well because the nurse called me to say she was done.  Since she had been stumbling and I couldn't leave the boys in the car alone, I asked the nurse to have someone walk her out to me so she would be safe.

When they get to me, the nurse says I have to take her over to the hospital immediately to get a CT scan.  I had already called my father-in-law to ask him to watch the boys since I would be taking my grandma to the hospital for tests.  He said yes, so that relieved my stress over taking care of my grandma while watching the boys.

Since my in-laws live right down the street from the hospital, I dropped them off first.  Caleb was still asleep so Fred was going to take him inside to finish his nap.  Then I took my grandma to the hospital.  We had to register her, then we had to walk down to the lab to get blood work done.  They wanted to check her Coumadin levels.  I forgot to mention this earlier, but to get her tooth extracted, the oral surgeon told her to stop taking her Coumadin.  Coumadin is a blood thinner, and she had been off of it for 3 days.

She stumbled even though she was holding on to me, so I got her a wheelchair.  After her labs were done, I wheeled her down the hall to the CT waiting room.  This is past her usual lunch time, but they didn't want her to eat anything.  Meanwhile, it is also time for me to pick up my aunt to take her to the doctor.  So I leave my grandma in the waiting room, and go to pick up Aunt Frances.  I rush over there, and then take her to the doctor.  I told her to call me when she was done, and I would get over to her as soon as I could.  I warned her she might have to wait in the waiting room for a while until I was able to get back. 

Then I rushed back to the hospital, and my grandma was waiting for me ready to go.  We then had to go back to the doctor's office to hear the results.  We got in and they got us a room pretty quickly.  We were in the room a little while, when the doctor came in.   She said they didn't see any evidence of a stroke, but that a CT couldn't determine if there had been a TIA.  So the doctor said she really needed to get an MRI.  By this time, the doctor had asked if she was ever able to eat some lunch (I thought that was an odd question, since she hadn't wanted her to eat anything).  My grandma said no so they got her some juice and crackers.

Meanwhile, my aunt had called me twice, but I had wanted to wait until I heard the results.  So while they were scheduling her MRI, I drove back across town (everywhere in Lompoc takes 5 minutes) to pick her up and take her home.  Then I sped back to the doctor's office because while I was picking up my aunt the doctor's office had called me and told me to get back as soon as possible so that I could get her to the MRI, since there was an opening in a few minutes. 

I get my grandma and drive her BACK to the hospital.  Luckily we didn't have to register again, but once we got to the MRI waiting room, we had to wait a while.  So much for that 2:30 appointment.  I waited with her until the tech came to get her.  He said it would take about 20 minutes, so I went off to get some food.  I decided that the situation called for a corn dog from Foster's.  While I'm doing this I get about a bazillion phone calls from people checking up on my grandma. 

So I rush back to the hospital because I didn't want her to have to wait for me.  I had a few minutes to eat my corn dog before she comes out.  The tech then says that we have to go BACK to the doctor's office to get the results.  We go back, and they get us into a room again.  The doctor comes back and says that after looking really hard that they did find that she had a stroke.  She said it was about 5 millimeters.  I don't really know what that means, but the doctor said that it was about as small of a stroke as a person could have.  She said that she thought my grandma would make a full recovery and would get all her strength back to her leg. 

Turns out, this all happened because she had been off of her Coumadin.  It thins the blood and stops clots.  So since she wasn't on it, I guess a clot formed.  (Ah!  I just now figured out while I was typing that maybe the clot was 5 mm)  So she had the stroke. 

It was  very stressful day, but we finally got my grandma home just after 5 pm.  I had picked her up at 9:45 that morning.  She was exhausted and went right to bed.  My dad had already decided that he was going to fly out in case she needed help with anything.

My dad got in about 11 that night.  So the next few days he shuttled her to doctor's appointments and lab work.  But we got to visit with him each day.  Of course, spending 4 days in a row visiting at my grandmother's house left nothing done at my house.  I'm such a great procrastinator that I was able to convince myself to let things slide at our house.

So, sorry for the long post, but that's been my very long week.  And my grandma is doing much better.  Now I guess I have to stop procrastinating and start getting my house back in order.!