Together in a Hospital

On Sunday my mom was put in the hospital because of a major blood clot in her lungs. It could have killed her if it had been any bigger. Way to scare me so badly, Mom. Made me bite off all my fingernails (and let me tell you, they had been lookin' good).

By Monday at 5:00 PM Emily and I decided we needed to go see her. Nothing else would possibly put our minds at ease. We left about two hours later.

The next 36 hours were a blur. But a wonderful blur.

We didn't get to Jess's house til 3:30...ya know.....in the morning. After four hours of sleep, it was time to go see Mom. We were so close, I was so excited! Poor Mom was sitting in the hospital looking forward to Skyping me a few hours later. I think what I did was better though.

Emily, Lance, and I waited in the waiting room for a few minutes while Jess went in to see Mom and Dad. Of course I was standing there imaging all the worst possible ways to surprise them. Like just bursting through the door at full speed screaming and throwing confetti. It'd probably give her a real heart attack. Or we could have dressed up like nurses and gone in to give her a shot or check her oxygen or something and then BAM! it's us!! So many possibilities of freaking them out.

But I think what we did did the trick anyway. Jess walked in first saying, "You have visitors." There were immediate tears (ok more like mega-crazy-super loud sobs). Mom couldn't stop the flood of tears as she hugged Emily. Dad jumped up and hugged me, both of us crying. It was my turn to hug Mom next. We just couldn't stop crying. The nurses ran in the room, thinking something was horribly wrong, when in reality it was just the opposite.

Those first few minutes were so great, even if we were all crying. (Jess told me later on how funny it all actually was.) Mom was always holding one of our hands, I think it took her a while to believe that we were really there.

Those ten hours were wonderful, hard as it was why we were there. Nurses and doctors kept coming in talking about horrible things like platelets, veins, shots, needles, heartbeats and all those freaky medical things that I hate. Emily had to give me her chair because I looked pale. I took a lot of drinks to the drinking fountain. I'm really not a tower of strength when it comes to medical things like that.

But then it was finally my turn to take the lead on something. By now Mom was out of ICU, and she desperately needed her hair washed. The nurse brought us the weirdest looking pan to put under her head, so she didn't have to sit up at all. Then there was another bucket that could catch all the water as it ran out of the pan. I assigned everyone to their jobs, as I was the main "doctor" in this "procedure." Lance filled the cup with water so I could pour it in Mom's hair. She even asked who was in charge of the temperature of the water. I said, "A boy, I'm sorry." Emily held the bucket to catch all the used water, while Jessica was my main assistant in keeping the pan level under Mom's bed and getting me towels when needed and, of course, opening the shampoo bottle for me.

Mom just laid there smiling and enjoying the head massage that came with me washing it. And of course I tried freaking her out with the most doctor-like language I could come up with (to get back at them all for making fun of me so much!). "First step is to make an incision," and "I'm going to have to prepare my hands for this, this is dangerous." It was a blast. We were all laughing. If only the nurses had seen us (and Mom's wicked awesome Mohawk I gave her after I had the shampoo all lathered in). Pretty sure I even threw in a free commercial for Garnier's shampoo. It's for dry and frizzy hair. They should thank me.

She seemed ten times better after having clean hair. We all just hung out. Talked about our Thanksgivings, Skyped Finley in Alabama, read the cards Mom had gotten, hung out with the random visitors from church that came, feasted on hospital food together. It was great. I remember one time Jessica said, "Mom, want us to put on the TV or play some music while we sit here?" and Mom said with closed eyes, "No, just keep talking, your voices are my music." That made me happy.

I think the highlight for us all was Skyping with Sam. I think we woke him up with our call, but oh well. He's always been a morning person and he sounded like he was in a fantastic mood. He and Dorinda had Mellow in their bed with him. Typical Sam. He made us all laugh so much. It's like we were all together (except Josh who was at work and, though I'm probably the only one that thought of this, my future husband that is unfortunately missing out on cool things like this). Ok, but the four of us originals were there with Mom and Dad. Even if Sam was thousands of miles away. I kept looking over at Mom. Laying there just listening to her four favorite people talking and laughing. I notice things like that. I actually almost started crying at one point. Happy tears. It was so bittersweet; it's so rare that we're all together. But when we are, everything just seems right. We all laugh and joke nonstop. I don't think people understand how cool it is to see their entire family so often. I envy that.

The doctor came (or was he a surgeon....you know how I get....tuning people out when they start talking about medical/body/surgery type of things), anyway, whatever he was, he told us (all of us...Sam was still watching from the iPad) how there was a 50/50 chance that she'll need surgery. He held up his fingers to show us how big the blood clot was. Yikes. I didn't know that kind of stuff happened. Well, I just felt my heart skip kinda funny just at the thought of this blood stuff. I'm ending this paragraph now. I'm not the one to give these details.

We got a picture with Mom (Mom and her girls...heck yes I'm one of those people). I don't care if the picture was taken in a hospital. We all look so happy. But then came the hard part. I hate goodbyes in general. But this one was especially hard. We couldn't stop crying. I mean, she could have died because of this blood clot. This was pretty serious. None of us wanted to leave her. Seriously, let me just fail my exams and I'll just hang out in the hospital with her. We couldn't stop crying. I left a cute little wet spot on Dad's shirt from crying into it. I kept hugging Mom, holding her hand, crying. Making her promise she would be ok. I kissed her forehead. Leaving was so hard. The second I left Room 209 I just wanted to run right back in.

It was such a great day. I kind of hate saying that, ya know, since I was visiting one of my Favorite People Ever in the hospital, but hey....it was just so great. Filled with so much laughter and so much crying, but mostly just so much joy because we got to be all together.

God is so awesome. He's been teaching me so much about the power of prayer. I have had so many people tell me they were praying for my mom. It's been pretty cool. And how He brought us all together just for a couple of hours. It was amazing.

That's right, Wetselaars/Hubers/Millers. We're pretty great. Love you all.