All day headache

Okay, It was Monday in the wee hours and I was trying to sleep like anyone else should have been doing, but there it was-boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, chicka boom! My head was vibrating like I was running through a minefield and hitting all the mines!If you have a headach in your sleep, it makes for a miserable night and sets you up for an even more miserable day. So that began my Monday.

By 5:50am I was awake and inhaling acetaminophen and water (possible dehydration?). At 6:05 the phone rang- my sister from Texas to tell me that mom was in a bad state and hadn't been able to awake for several days after her surgery (they took her parathyroid-don't get it done, trust me!).I am not a bad daughter-I had been calling to check on her since she had her surgery but the folks back at home don't answer or pay their phone bills (just kidding!). She seemed to be not heavily concerned, but wanted me to know what was going on. She gave me the hospital contact info and the nurse whom to talk to.

So I called the hospital and spoke with Ike- the nurse in charge of one of the most difficult patients known to man- my mother, and he told me the jist. Mom's lab work was normal and they just can't figure out WHY she won't wake up. The neurologist was on his way to check her out and do some more testing. My mom whom I spoke to the day before this surgery was unresponsive. This little woman, all of the height of a fence post and had the will and attitude of a HERD OF RUNNING BULLS was down. I told him I'd call back in 6 hrs.

6 hrs later, Ike was still there. I told him he should be at home asleep, but I was glad to speak to him. He said that she coul squeeze his hand a little when he asked her to, but still could not open her eyes. Aha! Progress!! Told Ike to have a good night sleep and I'd talk to him soon.

Fast forward to Tuesday morning- spoke to Ike and the results are in that she has had a series of mini strokes (I thought so). We have taken the steps toward getting home to be there and help Dad, who had a stroke and heart attack in April, and be there for mom. Pray for us as we are headed to Tx tomorrow and who knows what we face, but Lord give us strength to endure.

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P.S. Chloe is claustrophobic since the drive from CA to TX.

The race is on!

Well, we are home from our adventures and have walked into a pot of boiling commotion. Our travel was a bit costly, but not as much as it could have been. Getting the car back on the road nearly wiped out our extra money and what was so bad is that it could have been avoided had the car just been started and driven at least three times a month, but there it sat for 16 months, lonely and undriven. Wasps made their home under the hood and the new tires and hoses began to rot. The brakes needed replacing also in the end. But thank God after all of those repairs, "Old Trusty" got us to Texas without a single problem!! That old Volvo saved us money in the end vs renting a car or flying. We just had to get tough and ride through scorching New Mexico and Texas on leather seats with no air conditioning in 104 degree weather. We had to stop and hang out until the evening,(maybe 5 hrs), also a trip to a childrens hospital helped eat up some time-and they had REALLY GOOD AIR CONDITIONING, story to follow later, but that forced us to rest and we got to eat while not moving!

God bless good friends and relatives who let you stay at their homes when they are gone! And bless all friends that make you feel like family even when you seem to overrun them! The song says, "Give and it shall be given unto you....Pressed down, shaken together, running over, running over..." That is how good our friends and my sister have been- homes, cars, whatever we needed, it was handed to us so generously.
Thank you so-ooooooo much! I didn't know I had done the same for you before.

Now we had to get home because some of our friends from Scotland (we visited them last year), were coming to spend 2 nights with us on their annual trip to Poland. They are a family of 7 and we have known them since we only had 2 children! We also needed to get home for a couple of appointments and to see if my flowers survived,(they died-sniff, sniff). We left Texas Wednesday night, picked up a rental van, drove to Dover, spent the night, hopped on a plane at 2pm, flew to Germany, stopped at our friends house for an hour, ate lunch and got on the road to home. We crossed the chunnel and were making good time till we hit traffic in London. It took an hour and a half to drive 6 MILES!! Needless to say, we didn't get home until 10pm Friday night and our guests were due on Saturday evening. We go to bed at 1am with the knowledge that there is a LOT of work to do at our house before our guests come in a few hours. Top that with time change and jet lag and you have a recipe for--exhaustion!
So get ready, cause here they come!