April - Part 2

We continued the never ending task of cleaning up the yard, but we could only get rid of whatever fits in the trash bins every week. We turned our attention to the patio covering which really needed some work. We replaced some of pieces, reinforced others and painted it. It really needs to be dismantled and rebuilt from scratch but we really don't have the time for that.

When Emily and I went during the week to pick up the pvc roofing material up, she saw baby chickens at the store. Emily and Caitlyn actually had been talking about attempting to change the tree house into a big chicken coop some years ago, but we never did it. The kids had gone off to college and were almost never here anyway. There was some regret about that when we had that egg shortage last year.

We had to move all the piles of wood and metal accumulated from past projects or for projects not yet tackled. It was a right mess.

As Emily would be starting her internship again near the end of the month, we made an effort to get out for short periods of time. We went to check out the San Jacinto Wildlife Area. There was actually a fire that went to the edge of the area at the beginning of the month while I was at jury duty. Christian actually saw the smoke from work and came home a little early because he knew I was not home and it looked like it was coming from our area.

Because we didn't go very early, since we spend our mornings working, the heat haze was a real problem. There seemed also to be less birds out and about. Emily joked that all we saw were Red-winged black birds and Coots.

Which wasn't exactly true, but it sure did feel like it. We did manage to find 2 or 3 lifers though and a much better look at the Tri-colored blackbird. We also got to see some super cute ducklings.

We also found that a lot of the trails seemed to be closed off so we couldn't find our way out to Mystic Lake. We finally called it a day but saw a coyote on our way out. We were tracking it when it stopped and pounced on something. Looks like it got some rodent or gopher or something out in the field. That was pretty neat!

While out on one of our errands, we stopped to check out the Mary Vagle Nature Center. It was a lot smaller than I thought it would be, but it was a nice little neighborhood "park" with a lot of California Native plants. There is a little pond there with ducks. Most of the ducks were some variety of domestic ducks from some farm or something. There is a little hike that will take you out a bit farther but we didn't get to check it out as it was too hot and we still had other things to do.

We actually went back out to the store one weekend so that Emily could get her chickens, but the store required you to buy four. She only wanted one or two. So we didn't get any.

Emily finally had to start her internship and left to stay with her grandmother again. Before the end of the first week though, Emily said that she was worried about grandma because her blood pressure has been high, she's been sleeping a lot and not eating with Emily for the last couple of nights. I guess last night she did not eat at all. She was complaining that her head hurt a lot. Later, she wrote that she was taking my mom to Urgent Care. They recommended she go to the hospital. The paper she got said to "evaluate for persistent HA." We found out later that HA is for headache.

She said that she has had bad headaches for weeks and had an appointment on Monday with her doctor. At the hospital they gave her a chest X-Ray and a CT scan. They gave her some medicine and drew blood. They said she could go home if she started to feel better. She didn't. Her blood pressure did go down some from when they went in. They did another CT scan and found a small aneurysm in her head. They don't have neurologists there so they were going to move her to another hospital. That was finally from 1:am. Emily finally headed home then. The hospital is supposed to my sister with any updates and where they were moving her to.

In the morning, we hadn't heard anything so I called and got a bit of a run-around from the hospital. I finally found out that they moved her to a hospital out towards LA. It was actually the hospital where my grandmother had gone to before she passed away many years ago. Because there was still morning traffic and they were probably still getting my mom settled at the new hospital, I hurried up to apply a coat of paint on the porch where we made some repairs. I then headed out to see my mom and picked up my brother along the way.

The neurologist told us that she had an aneurism actually at the base of her skull...but that it had been there for quite some time. A scan from a few years ago at the same hospital she transferred from earlier had shown the aneurism but they never told her about it! My sister and my mom said that she went to the hospital because she didn't feel good. It was a week or so before they were planning to go to Cancun for vacation. She was at the hospital for a couple of days and then they released her saying that she was ok. 

Years later, because of some extra high blood pressure, it had been causing her a lot of bad headaches...combined with some other medicine her family doctor has had her on for her neuropathy, she had not been sleeping well. Apparently that medicine has a lot of caffeine in it and is addictive to boot. So, she was hesitant to take as much as they prescribed her to take. She only took it in extreme cases. The neurologist said that it has a "kick back" of causing more pain when your system withdrawals from it. It becomes a vicious cycle of addiction. He recommended that we slowly get her off of it. As she had not taken it for a couple of days already, we felt it was best that she just stop taking it. The neurologist was actually very patient and caring to explain the whole situation to us. Most of the staff there was actually very good. All interactions with the previous hospital was a nightmare though. 

Our nephew Christopher arrived later that morning and was there with us for the rest of the day. He ran out and picked up some lunch for us while we waited for my mom's MRI that was scheduled. Unfortunately, we found out that the machines were down and they postponed it for another couple of hours. When she finally got her MRI, she was pretty exhausted. She got some new medication and had dinner already, so we got her ready for bed and left her to rest. Christopher was off to meet some friends for dinner. I took my brother back home. Emily came to meet us and have a late dinner with us. Debbie had made us all dinner so we got to recount the situation with everybody there and visit for a while. It was late by the time we were done, so Emily and I stayed at my mom's place. Christopher was supposed to go back there that night as well. He planned to go back to the hospital the next day to look after my mom. I packed a few things for my mom for him to bring with him.

In the morning, I had a quick breakfast with Emily and headed home. Christian was already hard at work outside. Emily followed a short time after and stopped by the store to bring us a few more supplies. We probably would have stayed if we didn't have only a week left to work before the inspection was due. The whole situation was pretty messed up and stressful. 

After monitoring my mother overnight and some additional tests and therapy, they said that she could go home, so Christopher brought her home that evening and she was finally able to get some peace and sleep in her own bed. His brother, Jared had also come down to see my mom, so he stayed to help my mom and Christopher was able to go back to work. She still has headaches but it is not as debilitating as before. She still doesn't have a ton of energy, but I think it is a little better than before. She sometimes doesn't really tell us everything going on with her until it gets super bad. But the long and the short of it all is that the neurologist said that in the scans from a couple of years ago showed that the bulge on the aneurism was already calcified. He did not think that it was new even then...so we don't know how long she has had it. She was in a really bad accident back in the 90s I think that might have been the cause of it all but she really didn't have insurance and everything to get any follow up appointments to see how she was doing after her initial visit in the Emergency Room. She is too old now for any medical interventions, and since they were able to ascertain that the aneurism did not rupture, they are just going to leave it alone and hope that some changes to her medication for her blood pressure and pain would mitigate the problems she was having.