Need Help with a Writing Project

Could "you" assist me with a open-heart surgery project I'm working on?



I'm looking for people experienced in the field of caring for open heart surgery patients who can answer questions for me. These include: nurses . . . both with intensive care experience ANd follow-up care on the "step-down" floors, certified nursing assistants, respiratory therapists, physical and occupational therapists, speech therapists, and anyone else who deals with any aspect of open-heart surgery that I've forgotten to mention.

I'm also looking for family members who provided care for the open-heart surgery patient after they left the hospital.

I especially need "your" input for this project. I'm looking for different challenges "you" faced during the recuperation period of your loved one and how "you" helped them overcome their difficulties. Examples of this include: lack of appetite which seems common after such a major surgery, forgetfulness and depression.

You can contact me at an email address I've reserved for this project. mailto:ThoseMomentsThatMatter@gmail.com. Thank you in advance.

We're home from the hospital

*deep sigh*. It's been a long time coming. We've got a lot of work to do in the next few weeks to get her up to par.

THanks for all prayers. I can't believe she's home again.

Cinderella's shoes

NEWS FLASH

"Cinderella seen in Bergner's store at Grand Prairie Shopping Center".

When asked for an interview, Cinderella inquired, "first... what time is it." When told it was 5 minutes till 12, she bolted from the store screaming "I'm late, I"m late," leaving only this confused reported and a purple sequined 3 inch pump respendant with a bow and a large purple and two crystal jewels by the open toe.

Just thought you should know famous people DO make it to Peoria.

BTW....WHO would wear such a thing? Ggggrin!

Oh wait, I do have a friend who could pull this shoe off and do it with style, but us ordinary folks, man....my husband would be laughing his butt off at this one.

What do light switches, ketchup dispensers, bananas, chairs and tables, a yellow-- Caution WET FLOOR sign and a tree have in common? I'm at the hospital visiting mom. SHe's asleep so I'm in the cafeteria wondering what I could write in my blog.

Sometimes, it's amazing to me how you can be in a place so very many times, but not "see" something. There are actually "3" trees in various corners of our cafeteria. Most likely fake ones. Ggggrin! ( I think) I've never seen them shed their leaves, but then again, since I never SAW the trees in the first place, one never knows. The darned things are actually dusty, so I assume they've been here for a while. (blushing faintly that I coulda missed the dumb things in the first place)

Oh well, guess I better turn my brain on next time I come to the cafeteria. Hope there aren't any pink elephants in the soup line. Ggggrin!

7 Rules to live by

1. Smile more often. It makes better looking wrinkles.

2. Take time to smell the roses (and if you're allergic, you can just wave from a distance. Even roses get lonely, ya know.)

3. Shave your legs more than once every 3 months in the winter. (You just never know when you're gonna fall on your face on the sidewalk and end up in the ER with a skinned up knee and a rattled brain.) And . . . IF you choose NOT to shave more often than that, tell the ER personnel that you are trying to start a new trend by wearing dread locks on your legs.

(Hey, wearing your pants around the bottom of your butt with your underwear hanging out came into vogue...I think you can away with this one!) gggrin!

4. When someone asks how you are . . . give them a spontaneous answer. None of that "fine, how are you?" crap.

Personally, when someone asks me how I am, I respond, "I'm reeeally, reeeeally, reeeeeeeeeally good, bordering on spectacular, but not quite there." That's been known to startle the person asking, but they almost always smile when I do it.

5. Be sure to listen. You just never know what you're gonna find out. Maybe it will be the winning lottery numbers. (Well, I can dream, can't I?)

6. Don't assume that someone should "see" you need help. Ask for it.

I know you think you shouldn't have to ask, but most of us are not mind readers, although I do "play" one on TV.

7. Pay it forward. Do a small kindness for someone and when they want to repay you, tell them to do something nice to another individual. I know for a fact that slowly and over time, you can influence an entire group of people to do the same.

Laughter reigned in the ICU

As many of you know, my mom’s occupied a room in the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital after undergoing open heart surgery more than a month ago. She experienced two respiratory arrests during the last five weeks and was on a ventilator/breathing machine most recently for more than two weeks.

Thank heavens . . . to quote a cliché, “she has turned the corner” and her health improves daily. The doctors decided to put a tracheostomy into her neck which sounds horrible but since then, her difficulty breathing has eased considerably. And as her breathing becomes better, her sense of humor erupts full force almost daily to the point she nearly made one of the nurses pee her pants tonight laughing.

Mom requested I place a cold rag for her head. A minute or so later, she made a grimace and gestured her fist towards her head several times like she was pounding something into her forehead. OH, NO, I think. She's got a horrible headache or is it a stroke?

Scared to death, I ordered her to tap out a message explaining the problem on an alphabet board. And this is the message I received:

“I need to tack the cloth to my brain. It keeps slipping.”

Relief swept through me. I laughed till I wheezed and me, being me, I told her I was going to ask her nurse if Mom could borrow her stapler. Tape would do if they didn’t trust her with the stapler. She chuckled silently and shooed me on to see what the nurse would say.

Of course, the nurse entered the room with a frown. “What do you need a stapler for, Mary?” Mom pantomimed that she wanted to staple the cloth to her forehead while I explained what she wanted. Thought we’d have to clean up the floor when the nurse finished laughing. I did end up taping the cloth to Mom's forehead anyway, just to tease her.

Candace, her nurse, told her that soon they would put a valve in her tracheostomy which would allow her to talk again. “Then you can cuss us nasty old nurses out.” Mom made the “who?…lil’ old Me cuss you out?” face and batted her eyelashes all sweet and innocent looking.

I told her I really wanted to know what word she said first when she could talk. That woman, my dear sweet 82-year-old mother, looked so pensive and thoughtful and onery (up to playing tricks) that both the nurse and I laughed till I ended up wiping tears from my eyes.

We’ll see what she says.

Report to follow . . .

New Slipper Sox

Mom's still in the hospital on a respirator. It's been almost a month since she had her surgery. Has had two respiratory arrests probably from a reaction to some medicine. Not as serious as a cardiac arrest, but serious none-the-less.

Her sense of humor is still there, however. She asked me to bring some slipper socks from home. She's tired of the icky old red ones they give you at the hospital.

I decided to make her day and bring her SPECIAL ones. BOught a pair of florescent pink one with heart shaped gripper thingies on the bottom. On the top is a picture of Ehyor, the donkey from the Winnie the Pooh stories. Just above his picture it says, LOVE ME.

I brought them in and said....don't feel like you HAVE to wear these. But she grabbed them and hugged them to her chest, her eyebrows wiggling their approval emphatically. It's so hard to talk when you have the equivalent of a fist stuck down your throat. Hard to read lips that way.

She's the talk of the ICU now. Gggrin! I don't suppose very many 82 year old ladies wear Ehyor socks up there. But then again, most 82 year old ladies don't wear ball caps with the caption ......
"Don't let the hallo fool you." (I'm not sure how to spell hallo...it's one of those round shiney rings that angels wear above their heads. gggrin)

Anyway, it made my day to see her eyes sparkle when she saw them.