Okay, now where were we?

Let's see if I can pick up where we left off. Day Three of my adventure ended with welcoming Franky home. And along with that, we got to hear all about the previous two weeks of hospital adventures. I wasn't quite prepared for the aftereffects of brain surgery. I really wish that I had taken a picture of the 49 (yes, 49!) staples in his head so I could share it with all of you here. I kept promising to get my camera out, but before I had a chance (yes, I had a whole week,but...) the staples were removed. The ironic part of the staples is this. He celebrated his 49th birthday while in the hospital. 49 staples. Weird, huh? The staples went from just above his ear all the way up to the top of his head. It was quite impressive.

While he was still in the hospital, my sister says the only way she can describe it is he looked like quasi moto. His head was so swollen on the one side that she said it literally looked like his head was going to explode. After his initial surgery, his blood pressure sky rocketed so high that it burst some blood vessels. This is not a good thing. They waited a few days to see if the swelling would go down. Petit mal seizures continued to become more frequent, about 2 per hour. Swelling continued to worsen. Finally when he had the grand mal seizure, they took him into surgery to put a drain in. This is the real fun part. My sister said that a few days later when they took the drain tube out, the nurse said, "Okay now, take a deep breath in." The tube was then pulled out. My sister, who was in the room at the time, says she's sitting there waiting for someone to close up the hole or something. But, no. Apparently it just kinda closes in on itself. Ew.

I've never had the pleasure of being in the intensive care unit of a really large hospital. Apparently it is not the most uplifting of experiences. My sister said that even though she was under lots of stress, it was by no means at all close to what some of the families were dealing with. And even though everyone's situation is different, there is lots of bonding that goes on in the waiting room. There was a rather large Hispanic family that befriended her during those two weeks. The patriarch of the family (his wife was the one in the ICU) invited her out for some drinks one evening. She gracefully decline, not wanting to leave the hospital in case something happened. The next day he came in and said in broken English, "Tequila bad. Vedy, vedy bad." Sounds like she made a good decision, eh?

There was another family that was basically in stall mode having to make "The Decision". The matriarch of the family had no brain activity. The youngest daughter, in her twenties, was having a really hard time with it. She apparently had had some sort of vision, possibly through a dream, that something would happen on the 12th. So they were holding off a few days for her sake. Because that would be a horrible "what if" cloud to have hanging over their heads. Like I said, not a very uplifting place to be.

So, with Franky home and slowly on the mend we were all feeling slightly optimistic. My mom's surgery was still planned to go forward in the next few days. All's well, right?........

And here's a couple pick-me-ups

Gotta end on a pleasant note....I can almost hear the collective, "Aaaaaahhh"