Hell Month and How Social Media Saved Me

Image via Flikr Creative Commons, courtesy of Anamorphic Mike.

When we write, life doesn’t stop. Things happen and bad things like to happen all at once, apparently. I’ve blogged faithfully for over five years, through death, sickness, and even when The Spawn knocked out all his front teeth and needed emergency surgery. Even when we found out my husband was being deployed to Afghanistan.

I enjoy blogging. I enjoy all of you. Talking to you, teaching you, and connecting with you. I know I kinda disappeared off the planet, so here’s the story (and I asked permission to tell it, btw).

October was a beating. We worked our tails off all August and September to put together WANACon (recordings available here, and it’s great stuff if you missed it). We thought, once we were finished? Ah, rest.

Yeah, about that.

Early October generally is hard for me anyway because it marks my Dad’s unexpected death (October 9th) and the death of my favorite aunt last year (October 4th). But those are just sad days, and I pushed through.

Then….

My nephew suffered a football injury. Crushed thumb (requiring surgery) and major concussion. Okay, I’m still good. Then, my AWESOME sister-in-law had to go in for laser surgery on both eyes to reattach her retinas (congenital issue). All right. Still going. Then I get a call my Nana is in the hospital, but stable. Okay. The next day? She passed away.

I wanted to go to Florida to attend her funeral, but something told me to stay home. The rest of the family was going to Florida and Sister-In-Law couldn’t travel. She was up and around, but something could still go wrong.

Boy did it EVER.

Last Sunday evening Sister-in-Law calls me bawling in pain. I’ve known this woman 14 years and have seen her cry three times. She couldn’t see anything but flashes and shadows. I didn’t sleep a wink and rushed over early the next morning to take her kids to school and her to the doctor, then another doctor, and another. Bad news.

She needed surgery again on both eyes; one surgery MAJOR, horrific and painful (for the curious, she needed a Vitrectomy on left eye and laser again on right eye on the same day). I call my family who is in Florida at the funeral and say, “Hey, it is what it is and it sucks, but Hubby and I have it handled.”

Monday night, no sleep because I’m all nerves about what my favorite person in the world is about to go through. Also, I had to keep her up to midnight (minimum) so she could eat and drink as much as possible because surgery wasn’t until the next afternoon and she was going to have to endure a looooong time with no food or fluids.

Tuesday afternoon, the surgeons worked on her eyes for THREE hours. She comes out of the anesthesia and the pain starts. Though it delayed our leaving, I asked the nurses to give her another round of hard-core IV pain medicine and sat…some more…clenching my teeth so hard I thought they might crack.

The 40 mile drive home was a nightmare. We, of course, hit rush hour traffic and are on the other side of the world from where she lives. Not only that, all I could think of this entire miserable ride home was some idiot texting and rear-ending us. That would be catastrophic. My mind just kept playing images of her getting hit in the face with airbags after surgeons just spent half a day reconstructing her eyes.

And, of course, on the way home, every yahoo with a truck bed full of crap HAD to pull in front of me. At one point, we were cruising along and a car broke down in our lane. I had to maneuver around between cars doing 70…with a nauseated patient in pain. By the time we get to the street where we need to pull off for her home? I thought I would have to pull over and puke from nerves.

So, I finally get her home and…her pain is skyrocketing. The med they gave at the day surgery center isn’t making a dent and she is crashing fast. I have to call in something stronger. It’s 5:30 PM and the country pharmacy closes at SIX. I zoom over and refuse to let them close until they fill her new med.

“I will SLEEP on THIS floor near the TUMS, THANK YOU! You going to leave me in here? O_o”

I rush back to her house and give her the new med, but it doesn’t seem to be working. KILL. ME. NOW.

Hubby races over with The Spawn and Pippa (my dog) in case Sister-In-Law needs to go to ER. Oh, but there’s a catch. Hubby is also watching over brother’s business while he’s at the funeral and needs to check on a job a few miles away….so he leaves. Also, we find out that one of our company trucks has been stolen.

Yay.

So I have The Spawn, a tiny dog who looks eerily like one of their big dog’s chew toys (they have two HORSES dogs that weigh almost 70 pounds a piece, and Pippa is 7 pounds). Also, the house has a steep set of stairs and now I have a toddler. The older boys aren’t home from football, I’m alone, and can’t locate a baby gate.

I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown. But, I didn’t. I focused on other things. I set up Pandora in Sister-In-Law’s room to play soothing music and rubbed her back and her hair and brought her ice packs.

In the meantime, I’m scrambling between calling doctors, keeping The Spawn entertained, checking on Sister-in-Law and praying her pain gets under control because if it didn’t, we would be off to the ER. Hubby and older boys finally get home and Kim is out of the rough (sort of). Pain is awful but she’s no longer crying which crying is BAD when one has had eye surgery.

Original plan? I was supposed to take her the next morning for the surgeon to evaluate her eyes and let us know if the surgery was successful. I delegate this to Hubby because I wasn’t safe to drive. Of course, this meant I got to be night nurse after being up three days.

I can do this! *cues “Rocky” theme song* Eyyyeeee of the tiger….

Wait, bad song choice?

I had to go in Sister-In-Law’s room every thirty minutes and make sure she was lying on her right side (off the left eye that had the major repair). I also had to keep giving her pain meds and liquids and make her sit up, face-down, 15 minutes EVERY hour all night. This is to help the retinas heal.

Image via Flikr Creative Commons, courtesy of Benjamin Watson.

By morning, I was dead on my feet. I go upstairs to make sure Hubby is awake to take Sister-In-Law to the doctor and older nephew to school. On the way down the stairs? I miss a step.

Thunk, thunk, thunk, OUCH. Now I have a mildly sprained ankle and wrist and badly bruised arm and leg. Walk it off. No, I’m cool.

Hubby takes Sister-In-Law to the doctor and I finally get a little bit of sleep. When they return, surgeon is less than thrilled about the results (so please pray for her). I get drafted for night nurse again and THANK GOD for the WANAs and Facebook friends because they kept me awake chatting with me and keeping me encouraged.

I tried to sleep the next day, but with The Spawn and a set of stairs, that was NOT going to happen. Also, all three dogs insisted on sleeping with/on me or they barked and I was concerned they would keep Sister-In-Law awake, so I allowed it—all 150 pounds of snuggle-bunnies. At this point, Hubby has taken older boy to have the pins removed from his thumb and then is off to airport to retrieve my mom and brother.

My brother finally returns from out of town on Halloween, so I’m cleaning their house, packing and hand-making the younger son’s costume because Sister-In-Law can’t see to do it. The police call and tell us our work truck has been found. Yay…um no. Instead of going straight home, I follow Hubby to the location the truck has been found and we have to wait on a wrecker to come retrieve it lest the thieves return.

At 9:30 we stagger in and I have to cook dinner. Full belly. Home. Now sleep? One would think. I kept waking up every hour to check on Sister-In-Law and was very disturbed that I couldn’t find the bathrooms and when the hell did they get CATS?

Friday morning, I again tried to sleep, but everyone on the planet kept calling. I couldn’t turn off my phone because I had to be available in case something went wrong with Sister-In-Law or The Spawn’s school needed me (am also a TERRIBLE nap-taker, so probably wouldn’t have slept anyway). Finally, I gave up, cleaned house, did laundry, and made casseroles for the weekend. That night? Still kept waking up to be night nurse.

ARGH.

Saturday, Hubby and I collapse on the couch and watch movies. I was SO SURE I’d get sleep. Nope. I made the mistake of thinking about my unread e-mail and had my first panic attack…ever. Ten o’clock that night? Couldn’t breathe and heart rate shot through the roof so was awake doing yoga breathing and praying until 4:00 AM.

So last night? I KNOW THIS IS THE NIGHT. SLEEP! The Spawn is off to bed and I’m shutting off lights when I hear Spawn start yelling my name. I rush to his room…and he pukes all over me and the floor. And he has 100 degree fever. Hubby let me go to bed and took care of Spawn. Hubby gets to bed around 10:30 and sometime after that The Spawn crawled in bed with us and kicked me half the night, though I wasn’t waking up enough to realize he was with us. Hubby takes him back to bed and today he is home, still running fever.

Thus, if this blog makes no sense it’s because I’m down to five brain cells and three are currently on injured reserve. I am very grateful for the many kind people (many WANAs) who were there to pray, comfort me, and keep me together because I was seriously falling apart by last night. Even DC Lozeau wrote a super sweet piece about me that really perked me up.

Image via Flikr Creative Commons, courtesy of Memekode.

Rachel Funk Heller lives in Hawaii and she was up IMing me to keep me awake through this so I could care for my loved one. Jay Donovan hijacked my blog to let y’all know I wasn’t dead. Lisa-Hall Wilson stepped in to guest post. Many of my Facebook followers who were nurses, IMed to walk me through what to do, how to care for Sister-In-Law, what to tell/ask the doctors, etc. I was able to keep a positive attitude and entertain all the kids and keep them upbeat and laughing.

We can’t control a lot in life, just our attitude .

I have THE BEST Sister-In-Law in the world. She is beautiful, kind, and just the best mom and wife in the world. It was an honor to be there for her. She’s just…there are no words to explain how wonderful she is.

People can say what they want about social media, but I could not have gotten through this without the love, help, encouragement and support of many people I have never met in person and I would name them but right now I am struggling with my OWN name. So, I might not be blogging the rest of the week. But if I go missing, please do NOT put my picture on milk cartons, ask for my picture to be placed on wine bottles because all my friends are writers .

What are your thoughts? Have you ever had a week, month, year that just beat the TAR out of you? Have you had social media friends who were your life-savers? I love hearing from you. I have missed you guys so much ((((HUGS)))).