The Longest 111 Day of My Life

My mother had to visit the cancer specialist at a far away city so she was a bit anxious last night and couldn't get to sleep. She was still up at 1 a.m. and I still had to blog etc after that. I finally got to bed about 3 a.m. and had the alarm set for 6:30 but my mother was up and making noise before the alarm so I got up and started the day. 
 
After getting her ready, my sister and I drove the long haul and as we neared the hospital, I notice a white van with a phone number on it with a 111 in it. I smiled as I drove hoping it would be a good day. I took Princess Five's prom jacket I am working on thinking I would have time to hem it while my mother got blood if needed. That never happened.

It took three people and three sticks to get an IV in and take blood. It took an hour for that. The Dr. Visit in itself was good from not having to wait long and I have been REALLY impressed with the staff at the Dr. office getting labs ordered, calling with the results, ordering blood etc. 

I can say with vigor that they have been the best experience I have ever had with Dr. Staff in my life! From the patient side anyway. 

I get my mother to the IV unit and this was where it got bad. My youngest sister was at her apartment taking pictures of everything she could so we can put them on a facebook page with a description so people in the family can say what they are interested in before we clean out the apartment so that we won't have chaos when we have to vacate.

My older sister comes to the IV unit while we are waiting for hours on the blood and drops a large sack of mail. I spent about three hours sorting mail! I was so tired and wanted to sleep but felt like I should help with the mail and she went to get some dinner for us as I didn't dare leave my mom alone as she had such a rough day. 

Good news is, that my mothers white count went down again! Bad news, is that her red blood and platelet count also went down so she is at risk for bleeding again and needed blood. She will now be on weekly blood draws to make sure she doesn't bleed out checking her platelet counts.    

I was tired and stressed and knew after being gone all day, we still have a VERY long many hour drive home. We were there for hours after the last other patient in the IV therapy unit which had about 40 beds in it. 

It really made me miss our small town hospital where they stick her once for the blood and we can go home until they call us the next day with a time when the blood is ready and take a five minute drive to the hospital for the blood. 

The unit at the large hospital is amazing but less personal and less private. There are pluses to both.

While I opened her mail, nearly every other envelope I looked at while opening my mothers junk mail, bills, accounts etc had a 111 in it somewhere. I think God was telling me to "hang in there" today as I was VERY frustrated with each person in my family having different ideas as to what should happen with my mother and my mother only wants to have a social life! 

Going there didn't make me feel any better about her situation. If anything, it made me more stressed in dealing with such a large family and everyone wanting something different for my mother. It made me write in my journal tonight that "I hope that I die quickly and early rather than putting my children through the stresses I have had to deal with trying to help my mother." 
 
That may sound harsh, but when you look at the posts of how many hours of time I have spent on healing my mom, sorting her stuff, moving her stuff, scanning her stuff and the thousands of hours I have left of her stuff to deal with, I think perhaps my mother isn't the issue but her "stuff" is! 

When we went to leave, they took out the IV finally and put on a gauze and wrap and withing the time it took for her to get up and get in the wheel chair, blood was gushing from her bandage and was on the chair, her clothes, the floor, the wheelchair, the blanket etc. 

It scared me that she could have bled out in the car on the ride home. It took a good five minutes or more for three of us to clean her up and rebandage her site and make sure she wasn't going to bleed on the way home.

After seeing the 1,111 number on my blog last night that I posted about, I was hoping today would give me so peace as to what I should do with my mom but the only thing I ended up feeling peace about was that my Heavenly Father is in charge. Can you believe all the 111 numbers we saw. We get to the IV unit and my mother asks what channel the "classic movies" are on and they hand me the TV station chart and on the left side as we sit down is "Press 111" etc. I couldn't help but take pictures as I just keep seeing the number as she was getting blood so I know God is in charge and pray that I get some sleep so I can face the questions I have with some clarity tomorrow! OK, really it would be later today as it is now 1:36 a.m. my time. ;-)