MY MOTHER, MY FRIEND

I've been wrestling all day with sharing some things with y'all - before I get into all of that, look at this photo. It's my mother. She has always thought that she looks like a boy in this picture, but I think she looks like, well, like 'her'. And, look closely - you can see that she's holding the locket on the necklace around her neck.
Of course, I love this picture. I adore it.
What I've been wrestling with is sharing with y'all how bad yesterday really was for me. I have been skimming over my feelings about all that has happened to my mother when posting because
I am quite aware that I'm not the first one to deal with an elderly (she would kill me for using that word! LOL) parent's health issues.
So, why should I give what I'm going through credence by blogging about it, by telling y'all?
I decided that I should because, first of all, there are those of you that haven't dealt with aging parents and health issues and maybe what I'm going through can help you in some way.
And, also because this is my blog, my diary of sorts, and I can write about what I want to write about - ewww, a little attitude caused by stress. LOL

Yesterday was hard in that it was another day of watching my mom act like she's on morphine.
Which she is, I know that.
I'm not THAT stressed.
Watching her doze, see things that aren't there (a bug - oh gosh, if there really was a bug there, please let it not be a june bug), doze, refuse to eat, doze, drink very little, doze, and for some reason, yesterday she had to go to the bathroom (or felt like she did) at least 12 times during the day.
It was an exhausting day though not that unusual of one since I got here on Tuesday night.

So, when the night nurse got here at 10:30, I went to bed very willingly.
I read for a long bit (Water for Elephants - it's soooooo good), crunched my nightly glass of ice as I read (pure heaven), finished reading, turned out the light and settled down into the soft bed under the fluffy comforter (remember, I'm in Michigan where it's already winter).
Ohhhh, it felt so good.
I said my nighttime prayers which I usually fall asleep saying and laid there thinking about the day and all that my mom had been going through.
It was then that I started to sob.
I just started sobbing. No warning. No toilet paper.
I cried for what seemed like forever, but, in reality, just long enough to soak my pillow, puff my eyes completely closed and impact my nose with snot.
I was so sad.
It hurts me so badly to see my mom not be my mom. Does that make sense?
And, I am well aware that I'm not the first, nor will I be the last, adult child to go through this. . . .so, when your best friend, or a person that goes to your church, or a neighbor, goes through something like this, pray really hard for them.
Pray for them, cook for them, why aren't you cooking for me?, help take care of their family, hug them, and do favors for them without having to first be asked.

Y'all have been so wonderful to me - your post comments and your emails.
Thank you for caring enough about me to care about my mother.

love,

MONDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2008

MOM UPDATE:
mom is doing so much better today! she actually did quite well yesterday, also. She's been eating some (praise God), focusing, watching a bit of television(we just finished watching The Price is Right - it reminded me of the boys when they were young - they loved that show.), visiting, had a bath, and is wearing clothes instead of p.j.'s today!
I'm so excited about how she looks and is acting.

Praise God and thank you for praying.

And, after I finish this post p.s., i'm going to find that paper and glitter i brought with me! woooooooo hoooooooo!!!
I am so blessed with my family and friends. All y'all have been so darling. I cannot thank you enough for your prayers. Just keep on prayin'!

xoxo, jan

"Thank you, Jesus, thank you, thank you, thank you"

Hi, dear friends and family! I thought you might like an update on my mother's medical situation. . . . .but, first let's talk about ME:)


I have so much to be thankful for. . . .mom's progress *which we'll get to in a minute*, the fact that I was able to come to Michigan to be with her [because I'm married to the amazing Frank the Tank] and y'all, for your prayers.
Prayer works and mom's progress is a testament to that!!
Thank you, my sweet, sweet friends and family, for taking the time to pray for my mother.
Keep praying - it's working, but, she's far from recovered so we've got aways to go.


This first picture is of mom in the E.R. after her fall.

I always have my camera with me, but I'm not sure I would have been thinking along the lines of taking pictures in the emergency room! LOL! But, my sister, Jean, did - she thought I might want to scrapbook all of this.
Hmmmm, doesn't know me as well as I thought!!
I cannot look at this picture. No. No,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no.

Eileen bought this little plush in the hospital gift shop - it looks JUST LIKE mom's maltese, Sophie. Oh, my, gosh, mom was thrilled! She kept that little Sophie wannabe at her side her entire hospital stay. Bless her heart!

This good lookin' thing is her favorite doctor, Dr. Rogers. She adored him and he took such good care of her in the hospital - he's now her *new* cardiologist:)

Would you believe this is her second day in the hospital???

"I KNOW!"

It looks like a Mickey D's birthday party! All they were missing was the ball pit!

She had a big smile, enjoyed her best friend *who brought the food*, and that 1/2 of a wee bitty cheeseburger she ate.

Heck, that's the most she's eaten since then!

Right now my sister, Jean, is having her drink an Ensure which she is doing quite obediently.

That's because Jean told her that the doctor called and said that she had to drink it......all of it.

JEAN LIED TO MY MOTHER!!

But, that's just fine with me - she drank it! LOL

Trust me. She is SO on morphine! She's crackin' me up, but it's not funny!

Bless her heart, I hate to see her loopy.

However, the first time I said that, my sisters were like in my face......"It's soooo much better than listening to her whimper in her sleep because the pain's so, so bad."

The picture below is one I took yesterday, my first day here.

I call this look her "Morphine Smile".

That's about it for today. Thanks, y'all for all you've been doing - the cards, calls and most of all, the prayers. They're working! That much you can see for yourself just by reading this post.

And, I know that she will continue to improve and will be completely healed, all accoring to God's will.

I have to tell you that the hardest part of this was, first, being in Texas when all of this happened last Wednesday and the following days, and now that I'm here???

It's so hard to see my mom incapacitated. I know a lot of you have already been through this kind of thing, that I'm not the first, but it's still hard.

I was thinking late last night about how this is like taking care of my babies those many years ago and here I am taking care of my mother like I took care of them. I hate it. . . .where's that vibrant, laughing, *fast moving without a walker* woman that I talked to on the phone two weeks ago?

I think about it, cry, go to sleep and get up the next morning ready to be Nurse Jannie another day - and, it's all good because God's in charge, you're praying, I'm with mom and mom's BFF cooked dinner:)

XOXO,

"pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease"

"pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.", was all I could whimper.

". . . . . .I am glad that God promises that his Spirit interprets for us when all we have in us is prayers like these. . . . ." (Jay Dozier, my friend and pastor)


I will pray for you at any time for any reason.
If you've got something sad, hard, depressing or tough, I'll be right there with the right words and the right spirit.

Until my precious mother fell backwards, knocked herself unconcious and literally, for real, cracked her skull and incurred a hematoma. A hematoma is blood between the skull and the brain causing pressure that gives you a killer headache estimated to last for approximately two weeks - that's the way this was explained to me).
This happened last Wednesday and landed her in ICU two thousand miles away from me.

Then, all I could pray, all I could whimper, was "please" and at times, "nononononononononono...".

Jay said it so well when he said, "Our individual cries for help are perfectly suitable. And when we link our cries for help with those who love the Lord, we are more able to see him working all things out for the good for those who love him."

I'm asking you now, if I haven't asked you already, to pray with me for my mother. My heart bleeds to hear my sister(s) tell me how she whimpers in pain, how she begs for more pain medicine.
It's been so hard being so far away.
I've not been afraid for my mother's healing because I know God is taking care of her, but, I am suffering along with her because I am so, so far away during this horrible time.

It's been scary news, bad news, then good news, then bad news, then good news.
We're back to the bad news.
Mom started out in ICU, was sent home, her headache was totally unmanageable and she was taken back to the ER in the early hours this morning.
She's been re-admitted to the hospital and will probably be there through Tuesday. They've changed her pain meds *yet again* and hopefully this marriage will work and she will receive some relief from the excruciating pain in her head.
If that happens, she'll get to go back home *under 24/7 care*.

If it doesn't, ohhhhh, this is so hard to say.
If it doesn't, she'll very likely be put in a nursing facility (I will not say "home" because the only way I am going to let her go, is fighting tooth and nail) until the pain is manageable, gone,
whatever.

Jean, Eileen and Joan have been there with mom since last week. They all have committments and jobs and families, so I am flying out on Tuesday (this Tuesday) and unless something changes and I need to stay longer, I'll be with my mom for two weeks.

I have custom orders to fulfill and holiday pieces to create, but I work well under pressure:) I should be back by November 4th, so I should be okay with "my job". *giggle*

So. There you go, dear friends. I'm counting on you to be praying for my sweet mother.
Oh, and for those of you that don't know what caused her to black out, it was her blood pressure. It dipped and she lost it.

If she had my butt, it would have hit the floor first instead of her head and we wouldn't be going through all of this. That's how I see it.



XOXO,

WHERE DID SEPTEMBER GO???

Hi, everyone! Have y'all checked your calendars? I looked at mine just this morning and, sure enough, we DID have a September this year. I don't know what happened, but somehow I missed it! Well, I must have because I was going to have my precious Halloween tags and kits made and listed in my Etsy store by the first of October and today's the 9th OF OCTOBER! LOL
Tonight I just finished my dozen Halloween tags and envelopes and am ready to list them in my Etsy shop. Now, earlier this week I listed my Halloween "BOO" kits (oh, you simply must go check them out - they are so sweet!) in my shop and once I get the tags listed I'll be able to start on Christmas!

Now, don't think that I'm skipping Thanksgiving because I'm not!

I have Thanksgiving tags listed in my Etsy shop and I have the BEST IDEA!!. . . .

I thought it would be the neatest thing, for Thanksgiving dinner, to have a cute Thanksgiving tag for everyone coming and write why I'm thankful for each person. that's going to be at the dinner on the back of the tags And, I would lay their tag on their dinner plate as their place card. Isn't that a sweet idea?

Okay, back to Halloween! I finished my tags tonight and all I need to do is get them listed.

That's funny, isn't it? Anyone that has an Etsy shop knows that you don't "just" list something - especially when you have a dozen somethings! LOL

But, I'm determined to get them up tomorrow. . . . .I just made myself laugh!

Above and below are three examples of the tags. Aren't they just darling??? Look closely - there's a LOT of detail work on them - that must be why it took like 67 hours to make them. JK!
They're 5" x 7" and come with coordinating envelopes.

And, really, when you see them in person, they are so much cuter than what my camera and software program show you! I think I need to upgrade my camera and learn how to use Adobe.

Ewwwww.....just thinking about learning how to use Adobe ages me! LOL

Well, y'all, that's it! That was quite a bit of information for one post, wasn't it?
Tomorrow I simply must pay bills and then I'm going to spend an hour or so listing the Halloween tags in my Etsy store. And, if you're thinking that you've never sent/given Halloween cards before, wouldn't this year be the best time to start?
I need the money and your friends and family need to feel the love.

HAHAHA!

XOXO, precious readers,

HOW IN THE SAM HILL DID THAT HAPPEN???

You see that blog post right below this one??? The one about the personal signature???
I totally did NOT post that!
How did that get there?
No one has my password.
I'm freaking out that someone had/has the ability to put that on my blog.
Can anyone tell me how that happened?
Or who do I go to to find out?
I feel like someone has broken into my house.
euwww.

Hurry! He may still be here hiding in the bathtub!

***thank you, everyone, for all of your suggestions and attempts to stop me from looking in the bathtub everytime i came to blog!
i have followed all of your suggestions and did a little research on my account page and saw that quite a while ago i had given flickr permission to post pics on my blog, meaning that i could post photos directly from flickr without going through my software program or whatever first.
i am going to live the rest of my life "knowing" that flickr posted that wee post about personalizing your signature - i've stopped looking in the bathtub.
i've also revoked flickr's blog permission though i'm not sure that is what it was. . .
and since i cannot find a link to Bloggers customer service, i'm going on with my life like everything is right in the world! LOL