Another weekend down. I'm always excited it's Friday because I can sleep in the next day, but between Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon, I get more than bored and have troubles finding things to occupy this crazy mind. After finding coffee on Sunday, I'm more than excited for it to be Monday morning so I can get the craziness that keeps my mind floating.
The past few days without my anxiety/depression/ocd/nightmare pills, have been a little buzzy. I feel like I'm stuck in Beetlejuice and an earthquake all in the same blink. And I blink slow. And I've been soo cranky. People and their complaints really really have been getting to me and I have been more than blunt in my noticing. Right now I just have a headache but I've been cleaning everything. I still cant find them. I've simply misplaced them in a cleaning rant. Tomorrow I will go to my Doctor to get some samples from him to get me through until I can get my prescription refilled... Insurance won't let me get them too close together and I've been crazy busy this week getting ready for Family Night at work and sleeping.
I guess by now you realize I have anxiety issues and nightmares.
I came across the term "Medicated and Motivated" recently, and it describes me to a T.
I hope no one worries about my productivity or my mental well being. I'm just having a weird week :)
And if you don't know why I would have anxiety issues, I guess I better give you the long story long:
Two years ago, on March 25th, my mother's brain started bleeding. It wasn't an anuerysm, it wasn't a stroke, but horrible all the same. I was in Chicago on Spring Break with my then boyfriend. I took an emergency flight home when my dad called me to tell me that her brain was bleeding. It cost me $800 to fly home like that and I bawled and hyperventilated the whole flight. Everyone was staring at me. Children were pointing and asking questions. As I boarded, Ashtin, my best friend called me and I asked her if Jason had called her. I had to get off the phone and she said, Amber. I'm praying. The flight was an hour, and I prayed the whole way. I even whispered that if anyone could hear me, that they pray for my mom.
When I got off the plane, my cousin was waiting for me to pick me up at xna... we ran to her car and sped to the hospital in Springdale. As I was coming down the escalator, I screamed, Christie, is she alive? She was at the time, as far as she knew.
When I got to the hospital, I went to find my Dad, and just sank into his arms. My aunt Glenda later told me, that he needed me. It wasn't going to be ok until I was there.
Mom had had a horrible horrible headache at her gospel band practice, appropriately named "Saved By Grace". She just wanted to go home, but the band leader insisted that she go to the hospital. My brother was across the street at our uncle Tommy's house, hanging out until it was time to take mom home. SO they called Robert, and he couldn't find his wallet with his driver's license. So Robert asked our Uncle Tommy to drive. Tommy has a son that has had medical problems and knew the waiting game at Washington Regional. Tommy drove my mom and Robert to the Springdale Hospital. Robert said that she kept closing her eyes and was so worried about Robert's welfare. When they got to the ER, she was the one they took right in. They did a follow my finger eye test, and when they got to her right eye, she got sick and passed out. They immediately did emergency brain surgery. They informed the family, she likely wouldn't make it.
She was still in surgery when I got to the hospital. It was about 30 minutes later that the doctor came into the waiting room, to all my family, aunts, uncles, cousins, you name it. Said surgery went ok. Had no clue if she would live and that we coiuld go see her. I was first.
I had just talked to her earlier that day. She had gone to my apartment to check on my cat, Hugo. She had text me that she had played with him a bit and commented on how nice my apartment had been kept up. I still have those texts on my old Blackberry.
When I saw her, they had shaved half of her head, she had a breathing tube in her mouth, and she was unconsious. They had deliberately put her under so that her brain wouldn't have any function and freak out and cause damage or pain. She didn't do anything for a week.
The doctor, a pessimistic man, is one of the best neurosurgeons in the state of Arkansas. And he happened to be at the hospital that night. He only works there every other weekend. And he was ready. He just needed to scrub in and his team was almost ready. Do you see GOD? We did.
She survived brain surgery but they told us in all likelyhood, she would be a vegetable for the rest of her life and we would be feeding her and taking care of her like a child. If she even survived at all.
I didn't sleep that first night. I tried but i was bunched into a little ball in a folding chair in the waiting room. My uncle that brought mom to the hospital, rented us a room upstairs for families that need to stay. I flung myself onto the bed and bawled until I threw up. How could I lose my Mom? I wasn't ready. I couldn't breathe. How could she be taken? I was a zombie at best. Ashtin came and layed with me in the bed. The only thing I could hang on to. I screamed and cried and didn't know what to do. That wasn't my mom down there. Ashtin gave me words that changed my life. She told me just to go talk to her.
Like I said, she was in the Surgical ICU for about two months. In that time, I completed the easy classes that I could at u of a, but I had to drop out and leave my status as student of Math and Physics. I still haven't been back. She slowly woke up. They took her out of her coma that they had put her in. She would open her eyes. That was the most she could do for a day. Sometimes she would move her hand. Her legs rarely moved. It took months for anything to move. She didn't know who we were. They asked her if she knew where she was. She was confused. She was barely alive. They discouraged us. They didn't think she would make it. She could die any moment.
After praying and praying and praying and praying and praying and praying some more, I finally felt at peace. A weird euphoria came over me. She wasn't going to die. I knew. Down in my stomach. They were wrong.
A lot of this is a blur and I know it doesn't make sense and I don't even know why I'm posting this. It's kinda just coming out as word vomit. Like when you get in a car and just drive and you don't know why.
It took a lot of work. Opening and closing her eyes. Moving her finger. Moving her hand. She wasn't barely conscious. One day she held my hand. One day she closed her hand around mine. One day she squeezed. One day she squeezed my hand when I asked her to. That was when the doctors gave us hope. Maybe. Maybe she would live. She still had the breathing tube in her mouth. She couldn't talk. She could barely move her mouth.
Most of this is a blur. That hospital room took a lot of my mind and my life. I don't know how I survived it.
But for me it got worse.
But I remember every single person that came. And brought food. And prayed. And called.
I remember someone told me that the church group that went down to Louisiana? to build houses heard about Mom. And a hundred of them just stopped, to pray. I got goosebumps. I got goosebumps for several times thinking about that in later days. A hundred people praying. No wonder she made it.
People brought food. Ashtin brought me things to wear and bought all the phone chargers that wal mart had bc mine was with Jason in Chicago. Jason's roomate offered to bring me my extra one when he got off work. My cousins brought food. Mom's co workers brought food. I remember every bit of that.
This is the latest Thank you note ever. But Thank you. It meant more than the world.
I would go up to the hospital after late classes at night and sing "Down in the Valley" to her before I went home. Months and months later, I was singing it at the house, just as I was doing busy work, and she came up and said, where have I heard you sing that before? She was in a coma. She was my best friend and a part of her was gone.
A big part of me struggled for a long long long time.
I had lost my mom. A new mom in her place. I lost my boyfriend, my job, my education, so much money. I was sick.
I went from a size 10 to a size 6 in months and didn't even know it.
My teeth ground so hard at night that I lost most of my gums and had to have oral surgery.
I went on medication and dream counseling and personal counseling and prayer counseling.
She came home in June. She gets better every day. She still gets discouraged, but she's the only one that knows where the scotch tape is in this house. She's still my mom and my best friend. And you bet your sweet bippy that my relationship with Christ went from walking to flying.
What a mighty GOD we serve.
More to come later. My thoughts are scattering.
Amber
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