Getting There

So to continue the story about my mom, and the stress she gives me :) So I told my brother to call an ambulance because something was obviously wrong with mom. So he called one, and off to the hospital they took her. They ran a bunch of tests on her from a chest X-Ray (what's a hospital visit without one of those!), to testing several vials of blood, to a head CT. Now, they called a Code Orange on my mom (which I'm assuming is a neuro/stroke code), and actually removed a patient mid-scan from the CT to scan my mom. When my step-dad told me that, I knew it probably wasn't good. My first impression from talking to my mom prior was either a stroke or mini-stroke. Based on the hospitals actions, I was assuming they were thinking the same thing.

So it also took 3 techs and 7 pokes to my moms arms to get any blood for testing. They were checking everything from liver/kidney function to drug testing. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending how you look at it) everything in the blood work was negative. And her head CT was also negative. WHAT?! Um, then why is mom like this?? So because they still didn't know what was going on, and even though she was starting to come to with NO memory of that entire afternoon what-so-ever, they admitted her. It was Sunday night around 11:30pm by the time they put her in a room. Oh yea, and she was on the Stroke Unit. Great.

So the next morning, I get up and do my usual thing - take my temperature, eat a little something, go to the gym, shower, and then head to work. I called a good friend/co-worker while I was on my way to work, to give her a heads up about the happenings of the night before, so she could forewarn our other co-worker/supervisor. So I show up at work, and my other co-worker looks at me, and says, "Why are you here?" I told her because my step-dad and Matt said to not go down, because they still don't know what's going on with mom, and I had just got back from Long Island "hours" before. She then asked me if I wanted to go back, and to that I started crying, saying that I'm scared, and yes I do want to be with my mom. With that, she then told me to "get out of here", and not to worry, the building will still be around when I get back. She told me to take off as much as I needed, and if it was the whole week (I was going BACK to LI on Thursday for my BF's wedding) that would be fine - it wouldn't be worth it to drive back on, say Wednesday, work a day, and then drive all the way back. So I did an about-face, punched out, and headed home (an hour and 15 minutes away) to pack for a week.

Ok, so longer story short, I drove to Long Island, and got there by around 4ish pm. I stayed with mom until about 8:30pm that night. She looked good, and was surprised to see me. Of course, she asked me "who told you I was here?", and I looked at her, a little nervous, and said, "Mom, when I talked to you at 7:00 this morning, I told you that I was the one who told Rob to call an ambulance." To that she said, "Oh yea, that's right. I remember now." :/ I then went on to jokingly ask her what her birthday was (Which I think is going to be a long-standing inside joke now). That day, they did an MRA, MRI, and echocardiogram. All of which were NEGATIVE. Huh?? What??? Negative? Well, then mom, you're not going anywhere until they find out what happened, and why you still can't remember anything from Sunday.

Lo and behold, they did have a reason. They called it Prednisone Psychosis. And after looking it up (I thought the doctor was pulling this out of her ass), it made sense - she had all the symptoms, which oddly enough, mimic a stroke. Mom has been on and off Prednisone for years for bad lungs and chronic pneumonia. She was just finishing up a tapered dose for pneumonia when this happened.

So, she didn't have a stroke or mini-stroke, and all of this was caused by a drug. One drug. Amazing. I'm just happy that mom is ok, and there was nothing seriously wrong with her. She was discharged on Tuesday with no restrictions, except to stay away from Prednisone. Thank God. So I stayed down for the rest of the week to help out with the kids, and when mom was feeling better and I knew she was ok, I transitioned over to wedding stuff. Which, by the way, the wedding was so beautiful, and so much fun. And I have a new favorite picture of Matt and I (above).

In other news, October is over - YAY!

And I started using OPK's (Ovulation Prediction Kits - pretty much a stick you pee on that tells you when you're about to ovulate), and got my first + OPK on CD 19, October 27. I also got a positive last night, and this morning right after I temped. Initially, after the first +OPK, I thought I wasn't going to ovulate this cycle because my temps were so weird, and didn't show any temp spike to go along with ovulation. But now, I have a temp spike, and 2 +OPK's. So I guess I'm going to O; just a little later than expected.