Home from Montreal and another trip to the Hospital

Hey all,

Originally I sat down Friday night with the intention of filling you all in on what we've been up to lately ... however, after spending a week in Montreal and just getting home that night, I was far too tired to write much of anything, so I put it aside until Sat. Unfortunately, the events of Sat morning changed the subject of this blog completely :-( But let's start from the beginning ......

YAY! I'm finally home! I left Monday evening for a business trip to Montreal, and arrived home tonight (Friday) around 6:30pm. Well, I had gotten off the plane and picked up my luggage and was back to my vehicle shortly after 6:30 ... by the time I dropped off my co-worker, stopped for gas, and stopped by to see the boys at their dad's ... it was closer to 8:30 by the time I got 'home'. Once again, I'm exhausted, and it's wonderful to be home :-) As it worked out, the boys are with their father this weekend, so I plan on doing nothing but sleeping for the next two days :-) Ok, maybe not the FULL two days, but at least 12 straight hrs when I crawl into bed later lol.

I was a little nervous about flying ... with the whole recent lung thing and all. I wasn't sure how it would stand up to that pressure, but ... going to mtl every so often has been part of my job for the last 3yrs, I knew I had flown since the surgery ... just not so soon after a tear.

As we were taking off, I couldn't help remembering the ride at the fair that I used to love as a kid. It was like a spaceship, Gravitron it might have been called? Once it started spinning 'full speed', you would start sliding up the wall on this little padded slab, no matter how hard you tried to stay where you were ... and everyone would be trying to lift their arms or head but the 'gravitational pull' was just too strong for most to move at all lol. I then thought about my lungs, and wondered if that's what the staples felt like when the pressure on take-off got to the point where it made your ears pop ... were they fighting the pop and pull too? lol

So far all if fine :-D No lung issues from the plane ride and all is working as it should again :-)

I did however end up with a cold my first day there :-( I could feel it starting on Monday, but it was a full fledged cold when I woke up on Tues. It's never fun to be sick .... even less fun to be sick while you're away, and stuck in a room all day for meetings. And since it was a 'meeting of the minds' I couldn't just sit there in a cold-induced haze ... I sort of had to pay attention lol.

Overall the trip was good. Uneventful ... aside from having to change rooms the first night because of no Internet service, and having to wait 20 min in the lobby the next night ...for them to find me a new 'room service book' since mine was missing from my new room, and couldn't order room service without it ...but thankfully, no naked people in the hot tub this time LOL. One night, I finally got out and explored Old Montreal with my co-workers. It was BEAUTIFUL!!!! In all the times I've been to Montreal, I've never been to this part of the city and I'm so glad I finally got to see it :-) Just wish I had brought my camera!

On the flight home, the more I thought about the meetings, the more proud I felt about being in attendance. This was one of many meetings that have taken place to determine major factors of the project. How particular systems will work. It's a large and complicated project, and here are 5 people sitting in a room, figuring out how 'things' are going to work ... and 4/5 of those people were women! Go Girls! Go Girls!!!! :-) And it didn't go un-noticed by others either ;-) Any time someone happened to stop by or join us, there were comments made with respect to how this particular attendee lucked out to be stuck in a room with 4 women all week LOL. All joking aside, I looked at it from the perspective that if this was 20yrs ago ... the women would most likely not have even been allowed in the room, other than to deliver the coffee ... and now here we are making the decisions! Now THAT'S progress I say!!!! :-)

Yesterday morning (Saturday) I had planned to sleep in!!! Of course, things never quite go as planned do they?

I woke up instead just after 9:30 with the urge to call my best friend. Normally we talk at least once a week (we live in different cities) if not more, and I hadn't spoken to her since the previous weekend before I went away. We have a strange connection she and I .... we've been friends so long that now that we always just seem to 'know' when we NEED to talk to each other. When something's 'up'. It's a really cool connection ... but can still be a little eerie at times lol.

So yesterday I woke up with the NEED to talk to her. I waited until just before 11 though before calling because like me, I know she likes her sleep on the weekends also and I didn't want to wake her up too early on a Sat morning :-) I need not have worried :-(

When I called her house, her son answered and informed me his Mom was here in Halifax. He was staying with the neighbour. His grandfather had been in a bad car accident and he was in the ICU here in town. DAMN!!!! His mom had arrived the night before. What was originally planned as a day of relaxation quickly changed ....

I jumped in the shower as soon as I hung up with him, called the hospital to find out exactly where they were, then headed over there and spent the next 10hrs there with them :-(

Her Dad was in the accident on Wed night. They may never know exactly what happened. He was going around a turn, almost home of course, and went into a bunch of trees. One of the tires is missing off the car, and there were no skid marks, so he didn't even break. Did he hit something? Did the tire blow out or come off? Why was one tire gone? Why didn't he hit the breaks? These are the questions they may never get the answers to, as he may not even remember any of it when he eventually wakes up.

He's very lucky to be alive! The seat belt and air bag saved him, but the force of the air bag might also have been what caused him to hit his head against the door/window also.The car is totaled. But he has no broken bones (arms/legs etc) whatsoever! However, he has bleeding and swelling on the brain, and he also has a C2 break in his neck and bleeding there as well. It's amazing. Most people with a C2 break are quadriplegic after wards .... he's breathing on his own, and he's moving his arms and legs ... that's not supposed to be possible, but he's doing it!!! I saw it myself when I was in the ICU yesterday. He raised his arm while I was there (involuntarily of course), and his legs were moving under the blanket like he was trying to get himself comfortable. Unfortunately, they have to have him strapped to the bed, so he doesn't move too much, make a wrong move and end up paralyzing himself :-(He's still not very good though. He's not conscious, and has been heavily medicated since Wed night, but he's squeezed Cass's hand a couple of times on request, but he's really nowhere near being out of the woods.

To top things off ... while at the hospital with her dad, it was discovered her mom has a broken foot and she's been walking on it all week!!!!

After being there awhile yesterday, I took Cass out for lunch, just to get away for awhile, then we brought lunch back for her mom and stayed around the hospital for awhile. Then around 6, I brought Cass home with me so she could shower and have a power nap, so she could sit with her dad that night and let her mom sleep. Well she managed to get the shower, but then her mom called from the hospital. The nurse had sent her down to emerg to have a cast put on her foot cause the swelling was getting too bad, and since they weren't sure how long it was going to take, her mom didn't want her dad to be alone.

So back to the hospital we went. I loaded them up with a couple of pillows, and comforters (it's always FREEZING in hospitals!!! I know from experience LOL) and some pj bottoms and extra shirts, socks, granola bars etc and off we went again. I'm sure we looked like we were moving in when they saw us coming back LOL.

After seeing her dad first (I didn't want to go in after the initial visit ... since I had a cold last week, I didn't want to take the chance of passing on any cold germs!), we then went down to emerg. to find her mom. The ER doc had a mission for us LOL. They were going to cast her mom, but didn't have any crutches on hand. That I still don't get ... why are there no crutches in a hospital? Why would a person have to go to a pharmacy for them????? But that's what we had to do! Back in the car, and off to the pharmacy at 10 pm to pick up crutches for her mom. Then I dropped her off back at the hospital for the night.

I haven't heard from her yet today, so I'm assuming there has been no change in her dad since last night. That can be good or bad I guess. Good that he hasn't gotten worse. Bad that the swelling and bleeding hasn't gone down any.

They're not sure yet how they're going to treat the broken neck. Halo, bolts to the neck, traction ... regardless what the procedure ... her dad will be in some type of recovery for a very long time. We still have no idea how long he'll be in the ICU or even the hospital altogether. It's going to be a very long road to recovery ... BUT ..... he's alive ... and that's the main thing.

So now I'm off to the hospital again. The boys will be back tonight so I want to get my visit in this afternoon and see if they 'need' anything. I don't plan on bringing the boys for a visit. They don't need to see him in that condition.

Please keep my friend's dad in your thoughts ... it could still go either way right now, and after just losing her sister in law 6 months ago, this family really doesn't need another tragedy right now :-(

Take care all! Happy Thanksgiving! And yes, it was a serious accident, but there are still many things to be thankful for ... he's alive ... and he can move. Right now, I'm just thankful that he's still here for his family.

K.