Stressed is Desserts backwards right?

Let me tell you, my life is usually not this much drama but lately that is all it has been. Today, I am 37 weeks and 3 days. I have been in labor for 2 days. Some of it extremely painful, most is not but still labor none the less. My insides feel like ground up meat and I am so sore. I am thankful, don’t get me wrong. I will do this til the end of time if I needed to, I am just tired.

On another note, one of the reasons I am early in my labor is stress. There is so much going on that I can’t wrap my head around it all.

My mom has had breathing issues for a long time. She grew up in a copper mine town in Tenn. and that was the start of many abuses to her lungs. She smoked most of her life, she lived in smogged filled cities, she worked in a smokehouse, list goes on. She was diagnosed with emphysema long ago and about 5 years ago she was put on oxygen.

She had never had a doctor take interest in her lungs until now. She has never had x-ray or MRI’s to confirm anything concerning her lungs. Now, she needs surgery on a more private level but is a big surgery. She can’t because she was evaluated 4 days before the scheduled surgery, to find out, she had pneumonia and several nodules. Her surgeon got her into a lung doctor’s office that was impossible to get into. He has begun a series of test that are leading to another series of test.

Today was one of those test. She was having a lung biopsy. Something you would normally be put to sleep for. She can’t, remember? Her doctor cautioned her, cautioned her a lot, that this could be very dangerous. That her lungs were so bad, they could very easily collapses and he could do nothing to fix it. She has been a tore up mess (excuse my country coming out).

My mom doesn’t see the good in anything. NOTHING. She had herself dead at the end of her doctor’s appointment. She has done nothing but concentrated on the worse. I am her outlet when she panics, so I have been hearing how she is going to not live through this, that my dad will grieve to death or starve from not having anyone to take care of him. THEN, she started in that if she does happen to live through this, she knows she has cancer. She can’t be operated on and she will refuse all treatments until she can come to my home to spend a couple of weeks with her new grandson. I start considering inducement because she could need treatment and I would be the reason she didn’t get it. She could survive easily if she had taken treatment if she hadn’t refused it to come here.

See where I am going with the stress thing? Let’s add to it. My parent’s neighbor’s all live like a small compound. There is the dad, Mickey: mom, Sandra: daughter, Terri: granddaughter, Michelle: great grands, Jasmine and Christian. About a month ago, Terri was walking around the property and was going to pick some wild black berries off the vine. She stepped over into them and thought she had stepped into a fire ant bed. She went home and the next day went to the hospital where she died from a snake bite that was not treated properly. She was a legal guardian of Christian although he has never been adopted, Michelle signed her rights to him to her mom.

That was a month ago, this past weekend, the mom, Sandra walked into the kitchen to take her medicine, sat down in a chair and literally fell over in the floor dead. She had been sick a long time and was completely broken when her daughter died. She was set to be buried yesterday but, yes there is a but, the dad, Mickey had a heart attack and was sent to the ICU to find out he had pneumonia. Mickey has custody of Jasmine and is legal guardian of Christian. Michelle, who is Jasmine and Christian’s biological mother never wanted her children and still makes it clear during all this that she doesn’t want them although they all live on the same property. She has many drug and alcohol problems and has already turned her grandparent’s house upside down. Mickey is a second father to me so this upsets me so much but what is worse, Michelle calls my parents when something happens. My mom has been right there for Sandra’s death, Mickey’s cardiac arrest, when Terri was bit.

This all adds to the fear that my mom has that she is going to die. So she calls me. I have to try to talk her out of her panic, give her reason’s for the things going on around them. Convince her that Michelle isn’t going to get high and rob their house. (they live in the country, there is really no other neighbors, just the few houses in this one little spot in the middle of acres and acres of nothingness.)

So yes I am stressed and ready to find some comfort somewhere. My sister and her daughter was with my mom for her biopsy this morning and everything went fine. That is a relief, now on to the results of the test.

Playing catch-up

These last two weeks has been a roller coaster of ups and downs. I’m beyond tired and stressed. We started this coaster ride on March 26th. We had our OB/GYN appointment, which we saw the midwife. She assured me that we can get baby boy turned correctly, gave me some exercises to do and told me about a procedure they can do in office. I felt so much better after that appointment. Then we were off to the dentist so my husband could get his temporary crown from his root canal. There ended up being more work involved in that than they expected, so that took an hour longer. Then we picked up our oldest, loaded our van and set out to my parents house, 5 hours away.
Our trip was a very good, uneventful trip. Which with 3 kids and a very preggers mommy is always good. At my parents house, I had a birthday that I tried to let slip by. We celebrated Monkey’s 4th birthday since we were with family. I helped my Mom fill out pre-op papers for her surgery that was scheduled for later this month. Me and my husband looked into their medicare benefits and did all the insurance inquires. I was able to see my best friend that I haven’t seen in a very long time. I was so excited about our “date”. Hubs took me to downtown Greenville to Mast General Store where they sell old fashion candy and I was able to get a Cherry Mash. We went to a baby store and test drove strollers and car seats. It was just a very busy week.
When I had left my “date” with my best friend, I called my Mom to see if she needed anything. She was very horse. (My Mom has emphysema, COPD, scar tissue on her lungs and is on oxygen) I hung up with her because her neighbors had walked up (remember this). I called her new doctor and scheduled an emergency appointment. This was Thursday evening and they worked her in on Monday.
We had Monkey’s birthday party on Friday and prepared to leave the following day. We went by my mother-in-law’s house on the way out of time. Spent some time with hub’s mom and sister.
Fast forward to Monday. My Mom goes to her doctor’s appointment. She has an upper respiratory infection. Something we expected. What we didn’t expect was her neighbor (the one from earlier, that had stopped out at her house on Thursday before) was dead. When she had stopped at my Mom’s house that evening, she had thought she had stepped in a fire ant bed. She didn’t know til she was in the hospital later that she was bit by a snake. By Saturday night, she was dead.
Well, my parents are dealing with the death, plus knowing there is a live snake in their yard that could do that, then my Mom had an appointment with her lung doctor. That’s when we found out about the pneumonia and a spot that was found on her lung.
Time for panic to start setting in on me. We are now waiting on all the meds to work so we can find out about this spot. But there is a huge BUT. Her lung doctor will not allow her to be put to sleep at all. Even with everything cleared up. Her lungs are just too weak. So whether her spot is good or bad, they can’t do anything about it if it involves sedation.
Now comes to the sickness in my house. Punkydoodles started a fever this past Saturday. Meds will bring them down temporarily but not for long. In my experiences with fevers in the past, I knew she was at risk for seizures so I have kept her right by my side. She has even been sleeping in baby boy’s crib. Her fevers are very high when they peak. Usually around 104-105. When she isn’t burning up, she’s around 100. We had her in the peds office first thing yesterday and the doctor said she had a very bad sinus infection. He was able to tell me that she has a really bad sore throat and her ears hurt too. He gave her amoxicillin and instructed me to add more ibuprofen to what I was giving her. As of last night, we still are dealing with 104 temp.

I am going to finish this very long post on a somewhat good note. After my OB appointment yesterday, the doctor thinks Trei has finally turned head down. Not 100% sure but she thinks so. I start stress test every week in 2 weeks and she will take a quick ultrasound to make sure. That is a huge weight lifted if he has turned with only 6 weeks left or less.