Another twist on this roller coaster ride of life...

Well, today brought another opportunity to be grateful and realize just how fragile life is...Mom was doing her last covered day of PT and suffered painful breathing and tightness in her chest.  So, to be on the safe side, the nursing home called 911 to have her examined at the hospital.  And it is a good thing they did.  Mom suffered a pulmonary embolism, which for us lay people is a blood clot in her lung.  The blood clot is usually what they refer to as a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and for many possible reasons, may form somewhere in the body and break loose and travel into the lung.  Pulmonary embolism causes sudden death in 26% of the cases, and is the third most common cause of death in the U.S.  These DVT's can also cause strokes and heart attacks.  

The treatment, since we caught it, is to try and dissolve the clot with blood thinners such as Heparin in the near term, and Coumadin for the long term.  So, we get rid of this clot (and any others that may be lurking) and keep the blood thin enough to prevent any future clots.  For those with PE that recover but continue to go untreated, about a third will die from another PE.  However, these blood thinners can prove to be an issue because if you cut yourself, it is very hard to stop the bleeding, because your blood won't clot.  It is a fine balance.

By the time I got to the hospital, Mom was acting like an irritated bee...They not only started an IV in her arm, they needed an IV with a large gauge for the CT scan contrast, so they put a IV in her neck...So, she was glad to see me, and I seemed to calm her a bit.  But she was demanding to make it back to Magnolia tonight, because she was convinced that my Dad's memorial service was tomorrow.  She has been convinced that his service was "tomorrow" for the past week or so.  I am sure she will get it in her head that the service is not "tomorrow" 2 days before...Because, then, it will be tomorrow.:)

She is in pretty good spirits, but she does not want to be in the hospital.  The ER doctor said she will probably be in a day or two, but her hospitalist said she may be in 4 or 5 days.  We just want to be sure she is as stable as possible before that happens.

On a good note, I got another chance to check out the gift shop!  I bought Mom a super cute hat, and a necklace for myself.  So, once again, the hospital gift shop has supplemented my wardrobe.  Small blessings...;)

Also, my Dad's obituary should be in the Sunday paper this week.  I will post the link to the UT website once I get it on Sunday.  But keep your eye out for it.

Much love.