Day 34 - Back to the Hospital!

Mom, Day 34 after your stroke, and after just one day at one home (barely 24 hours), the ambulance had to take you back to the hospital. The paramedics, being from Fort Bend, could only take you to an area hospital, not back to Southwest Memorial where you had your first gastroscopy procedure. That was okay with me since you did not like that doctor over there -- although I never had the sense you even remembered that she was the same doctor who spoke so horribly to you two years ago during your kidney problems. (The picture taken here was on Day 35, September 13. The very last picture that was ever taken of you alive).
  I notified Mary Jo about your being rushed to the hospital. I left home about ten minutes after the ambulance and was there in the ER. It was a much nicer ER than the one at Southwest. The first thing they did was clean you up. You had blood all over you because you had not only been throwing up blood, you were also losing it from your rectum. The process of getting cleaned up was painful for you, but it was also very cold. Why these rooms are always so cold, I don;'t know. But I made sure you got plenty of warm blankets. Then, when Mary Jo finally arrived from work, I went back home. I told Mary Jo that I would be back at 9:00 so that she could go home, get some rest, and go back to work. It was very important that she work, because if she didn't work, she didn't get paid. I was lucky, if you can call it that. I was on FMLA, so I had plenty of time to spend with you. This was not how I pictured spending it. I thought most of my time on my FMLA would be waiting on you at home while you were on your recliner in the living room watching Hardball or Last Word.
  At 9:00 I did return, and as it turned out, we were very happy that the ambulance took you to the Memorial Herman hospital in Sugarland. The ICU there was so nice. It was as nice and comfortable (for guests) as a regular room would be in most other hospitals. And everything there seemed so new. But the best thing about it of all was Angie. That was the first nurse that you had in ICU. She treated you so wonderfully, and she gave you constant attention. Now I understand that this is what ICU is supposed to be, but that is not how ICU was at the other hospital. Angie would pop in every ten minutes and check on you and talk to you sweetly. And she even changed you in a manner that didn't seem to cause you pain. Mary Jo left about ten minutes after I came. It would be decided that night if you would have your second gastroscopy procedure. Basically they go down your throat with a camera and take a look inside your stomach to see where you are bleeding from.
  At around 11:00 that night they wheeled you to surgery, which I think was on the second floor. It was only me in the waiting room. Again I was told that this could be very dangerous given the condition my mother was in. I admit that I fully expected you to die that night. I was mentally preparing myself for that, if one can actually do that. But first the doctor came out to the waiting room to talk to me, and I was not encouraged by his words. Basically he wanted to know why we had brought you to this hospital? Why not Southwest? I told him that the Paramedics would only take you to a Fort Bend county hospital, and we figured that at least both of your doctors could still have visiting rights to see you here. He then explained to me that Southwest hospital had far better equipment and that they would be more familiar with her case. As I said, I was not encouraged to hear this, and I was fully expecting you to die that night. It's a wonder I still had an appetite to find the vending machine to get one of those Texas cinnamon rolls.
  I was expecting the surgery to last over an hour, but I think the doctor was done in just 40 minutes or so. He showed me pictures of inside your stomach, and for the first time I saw the clamps from the first procedure you had on Day 30 at the Southwest hospital. He did find another area where you were bleeding, and he cauterized the area. It was too close to a major vein, so he couldn't clamp it. He seemed confident now that he found all the areas that needed fixing. You went back to your ICU room. I spent all night with you. I think Paul came around 9:00 the next morning to relieve me. That would have been Day 35, which was a Thursday. You now had another nurse, and her name was either Pat or Jan, and she was also a very good nurse, but not quite as good as Angie. But I felt you were in good hands, and now I really felt like yes, you would be surviving all this. You had been through so much, and you were still alive. What would be the point of enduring all this, if God didn't mean to keep you around for another year or two?