Hell Yeah!

     There are moments in life that literally take your breath away. For me one of those moments was when I received that awful phone call from a Los Angeles detective informing me of Lauren's accident. I have relived the memories of that day time and time again. Not many people can pinpoint the exact second in their lives where literally everything changed, unfortunately for me...I can! Not just the obvious change but an event that was so big that the ripple effects have changed not only my  immediate family but extended family, friends and even strangers.
     Many of my relationships are now deeper and there is an emotional bond (that was already there) so much stronger now that I know there is absolutely nothing that could ever tear it apart. Sadly, other relationships have ended,  tragedy tends to reveal cracks in relationships that are ignored for so long that you look back and realize that for whatever reason, some people aren't who you thought they were...including yourself.

     It has been 1,271 days since that awful day. Thankfully, of those days, most have been good.  Probably because the only way to go was up! Clearly my life isn't exactly what I had envisioned for myself but is anyone's?? I do see things differently now and I have learned to look for the positive even when I don't feel like being positive. Attitude is everything. I would be lying if I said that I am thankful for this tragedy because I have learned so much about selflessness, love, giving and life in general. It is true that Lauren's accident has taught me all of those things but as a mother I hate everything about my current situation. It will never be easy watching my child struggle.
     My faith is strong but I still question why God chose my family.  I am very proud that Lauren is so inspirational to so many. Yet still I wish it was someone else's kid instead of mine.



     Back on April 19th, 2013 I was driving down highway 40 when I received that fateful phone call. I remember frantically looking for an exit so I could pull over and write down the information the detective gave me. I eventually got off at Big Bend and pulled into a random parking lot. I remember it seemed like it took me forever to find a safe place to pull over that day. My heart was pounding and my head was spinning.
     Dave was my next call, he didn't answer. I said a quick prayer and dialed the hospital social worker. Even before she picked up, I knew. Call it mothers intuition but I knew it was bad. I had asked the detective earlier if Lauren had head trauma and he said No. My first question to the social worker when she said hello was, "Does she have head trauma?" Her response was; "yes, she has severe head trauma." How did I know? I can't answer that, but somehow I just did. My next question was; "Is she going to die?" Her response; " If you are asking if you need to get here quickly, the answer is yes." That first phone call from the detective brought me to the edge of a cliff and that next call to the social worker threw me over.
     Many more highs and lows followed in the days/weeks/months/years ahead but none were more life changing than those two calls on that cold and gloomy day in April of 2013.


     This past Sunday I was driving down that old familiar stretch of highway 40 on my way to Sam's baby shower. There isn't a time that I pass that area without that awful sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Truth be told I avoid that stretch of highway if at all possible. Sunday I didn't have a choice, Sam's shower was coincidentally off of Big Bend. I had a few extra minutes to kill so I tried to locate the random parking lot I was in when I made the call to the hospital social worker 1,269 days earlier. I tried to find it one other time about a year ago but couldn't remember where it was. Sunday was different, I pulled right into the exact spot. It was the fence, I remember staring at that stupid fence. I hated that fence! It was there that I learned that my daughter was known as 'Trauma Foxtrot 5395.'
 I said a quick prayer and gave thanks for the fact that even though my life is still hard, harder than I ever thought possible, it is also good, better than I ever thought possible. I gave myself a mental "hell yeah." I pulled out of that parking lot feeling like a bad ass who could conquer the world....and maybe I will!

Am I Doing It Right?

I have read the medical reports time and time again from the early days after Lauren's accident trying to make some sort of sense over what my daughter has endured over the last several years. The medical reports are crystal clear, she suffered a closed head injury that was complicated by brain  herniation, frontal lobe contusions, and diffuse SAH resulting in tetraparesis. Or is it? What does all of that mean? I had to google tetraparesis. Tetraparesis or tetraplegia is a neurological condition in which all four limbs are weak (paresis) or paralyzed (plegia). Translation, my kid was so injured that she was unable to move a muscle. Nurses and doctors had to pinch her on the fatty part of her arm, next to her armpit, sometimes just below her knee on the bend of her leg every few hours just to see if she responded. Brain herniation was another term I googled; Brain herniation is a potentially deadly side effect of very high pressure within the skull that occurs when a part of the brain is squeezed across structures within the skull.

            Once I knew she would live, I began my quest for all the information I could find on Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) success stories. Who knew they actually have a book entitled Chicken Soup For The TBI Soul? That book actually made me the most annoyed of all the other TBI books and articles I have read. Many of the stories were written by the survivors themselves. I guess I should have been inspired but instead I found myself rating the extent of their injuries. I flipped through that book reading story after story and with each one I thought, “really, you don’t have a severe TBI, you were back at work 3 months later enjoying life again with a hard time remembering where you left your keys. Logically I know that isn’t fair to those who have lost so much and shared their stories. I was on a plane coming back from being with Lauren (when she was an inpatient in Omaha) when my epiphany hit me. The reason there weren’t any stories in the Chicken Soup for the TBI soul book that were similar to her story was because most of the people who had sustained such extreme injuries didn’t make it. Those that do, remain in a semi vegetative state.

            One thing I have learned is that I am constantly learning. Navigating this primary Caretaker TBI ship isn’t easy. Sometimes the pressure can really get to me. Am I doing all the right things? Is she getting the right therapies? Should I ask about other medications? Is she happy? Was I too crabby this morning? Is it okay if I am not always patient with her? Am I making enough time for my husband? Am I too distant with my other kids? Do my other kids know how proud they make me? Will this ever be easy? Is life really supposed to be easy..for anyone? Can God hear me? Why do I love cake and not carrots?

            I have made many friends along this journey and met many fabulous doctors, therapists and nurses. They all seem to be amazed by my daughter and the progress that she has made. Some even scratch their heads in bewilderment at the fact that she has accomplished so much despite how severe her injuries were. We are now at the point of her recovery that she has begun to take an active role in trying to get better. Things are still hard for her and her injury has actually made her a little quirky (like her dad). For instance; when we are going somewhere she will grab my purse and keys and stand by the door for 10 minutes until I am ready to go. If someone is coming to visit or picking her up, she will sit on the dining room chair for 20 minutes waiting for them to show up, if they are late, each minute is agony. On the days that I drop her off at work with her friend Shae, she always calls me 20 minutes before I am scheduled to come and get her. For the record, Dave’s quirks are different than Laurens. He doesn’t grab my purse and keys, when we are leaving the house,  he actually has to be the last one out of the house. Then he has to make himself an ice water and grab some snacks while his family melts in the hot car waiting for him. If only Dave and Lauren could get on the same quirk schedule, I could at least grab his keys from Lauren and start the car.

            This blog post was started because I was bored tonight while googling different therapies and TBI strategies. I have a few more tricks up my sleeve this year in regard to trying different types of therapies and brain injury computer programs. Lauren is normally pretty receptive to all the crazy crap that I come up with. We have a few Aphasia workbooks that we work on each week and often she will bring them to me and ask if we can practice. I can’t even imagine how hard it is for her to function each day. She has recovered enough to realize what has been lost. Her mental sharpness is on point but her understanding of language and her ability to talk fluently is still very poor.

            My prayer for her has always been, will she ever have the ability to fall in love, get married, bring children into the world etc. This summer while on vacation she had a seizure that caused a bit of a setback. For four days she was unable to speak any words that made sense and she couldn’t understand anything that she heard. It was really scary. Life is fragile and how quickly my prayer for her changed from, will she ever get married to a prayer of, will she ever be able to understand me or speak again? Thankfully our prayers were answered and she is back to her old spunky self.

I will continue to second guess every move I make and wonder what I am missing. The puzzle is coming together nicely but there are still so many pieces that are missing. I, like every other mother on the planet have been second guessing myself every day of my life. That will never change, unfortunately neither will my love for cake.   But for now I will celebrate the miracle of my daughter’s recovery and try my very hardest to be thankful for what I have. One of the countless quotes I have pinned on Pinterest  (I alternate between Pinterest quotes and Google TBI searches)  is “Recovery is a process. It takes time. It takes patience. It takes everything you got”  

Our family has changed so much since the date of Lauren’s accident. Sam got married and now she is having a baby…in that order. Dave and I were super excited especially since we ourselves messed up the order. Erin is a nurse and is in the process of looking for a house, not sure why because she has excellent roommates (us). Shannon is in South Africa working with sick kids in the hospital. She texted me tonight to tell me that she went zip lining, she pet a cheetah and was going to go shark cage diving today. Shannon is the kid that brought band aids with her to the movies when she was little just in case something started to hurt (thinking she may have been brainwashed in South Africa). Kelsey is finishing up her summer working as an intern with an awesome company and getting ready to return to college for her Junior year. Ryan just finished a week in DC learning about our government and politics and Maggie just got her permit and is learning how to drive (God help me.)

Despite all the hard things in life, life is still good and I am eternally grateful that Lauren survived a bunch of words that I can’t pronounce, and I’m going to be a grandma! How awesome is that?  God is Good!

           

Still Aging......

I am still battling the effects of aging. I have never been very good at getting into a routine of washing my face and applying moisturizer. I am definitely a type “B” person and prefer to just go with the flow. To define go with the flow..Basically I go to bed every night with a full face of makeup. Why would I bother taking off my make-up, I can do it in the morning when I am not tired. Luckily I never had acne issues when I was young so it was easy to ignore my skin and not be penalized for laziness and lack of facial care. 

Now that I am pushing 40, (okay technically  I’m really pushing 50 but I would prefer to consider myself more like 36 instead of my real age of 46) I hate what I see when I look in the mirror or see a photograph of myself. Not only has the eating my feelings diet totally exceeded my expectations but the turning my face into shoe leather years in the sun, combined with difficult life changes game plan, is also proving to be a strategy that is quite impressive. Go big or go home, right?

Keeping up with all that I have on my plate can often be overwhelming. I decided to try and find someone to clean my house every other week. I was able to get a referral from a girl who sounded great.  I will call her “Kim” to protect the innocent….I have a feeling she may make the blog posts often. “Kim” and I planned to meet at my house on Wednesday of last week so she could see the house and give me an estimate on what she would charge. I asked Kelsey, Erin and Ryan if they would please clean their rooms before Wednesday? When I went to bed on Tuesday Kelsey was in her room trying to get things put away that she had brought home with her from college on Sunday. 

I woke up Wednesday morning and checked on her progress…….

When I went into Ryan and Erin’s rooms it finally hit me. They must have ALL misunderstood me, my mistake. Apparently Ryan and Erin thought I said, make a huge pile of all of your crap and hide it to one side of your room. Poor little Kelsey must have thought I wanted her to run around and simulate an F-4 tornado. God love her she had to have been up all night working on her room. She really should take it easy the rest of the week.

When “Kim” showed up I let her know that when my kids didn’t pick up their rooms that she can just by-pass them when she comes. When I opened the door to Kelsey’s room to show her what I meant, I think I heard a gasp. 

Friday I decided to go to Target and get some closet organizer stuff, maybe that is their issue, they just don’t have enough closet space. I’m hopeful….. After I left Target I sent the girls this text message. 

So here I am on Saturday morning, sitting all alone in my quiet house working on homework for my statistics class. I can’t help but wonder what is the statistical probability that one of my kids will keep their room clean? 

I decided to take a break from homework and try out my newest wrinkle creams ( I have a whole arsenal of products).  I couldn’t read the directions because I am refusing to buy reading glasses. Why should I buy them, I’m not even 40….or was it 50???  Whatever. So here I am sitting alone in my kitchen with a face full of lotion that decided to slowly work itself into my eyeballs. After about 20 minutes, I was suffering from not only wrinkles,  but a runny nose from daily moisturizer making its way through my sinus cavity via my eyeballs. Blowing my nose every 10 seconds was nothing compared to the fact that my contacts were soon so cloudy from moisturize that I couldn’t see a thing. So much for positively radiant, maybe I should just take a nap, go to an all you can eat buffet or find a local bingo hall.

Change is Hard

Big Changes For 2016

     I have been away from home since July 3rd. I have had a few trips back during that time, the longest being over Christmas.  I have a new appreciation for the phrase “There’s no place like home.” I have loved every second that I have been able to spend at home but I realized during my time at home that things have changed since I left. 

     2016 will be a year of changes. I am starting the process of packing up my apartment  in Omaha and getting ready to come home. Lauren is now in a simulation apartment on campus at QLI.  They are giving her less support in her daily activities and are trying to successfully lead her down the path to more independence. Her speech is slowly improving and she continues to defy the odds. I will be home  February 1st.  I will fly to Omaha every weekend to be with Lauren. This will be tough for me to leave but I know she will do better in Omaha without me. Independence is something all parents want for their kids. I survived her first day of kindergarten, her driving, her going off to college and her moving to New York...I will survive this too and she will be stronger for it. It is best for her to be able to push herself. She can do this! She has had almost three years of preparation living with such a pushy mother. 

     Another change for 2016 involves Shannon and Kelsey. Previously they had access to my bank account and would transfer money whenever their accounts were running low. College is expensive so this year I am giving them each a monthly stipend.  They can use this money for whatever they want. I pay their utilities and rent so the money I deposit twice monthly is basically for food and recreation aka Vodka. So far I have received half a dozen SOS calls because their funds are drying up quickly. Shannon just received a $20 advance for February. I’m sure once Kelsey reads this my phone will ring.

     Back in October I purchased a few flights when Southwest had a good sale. I flew home Monday for a short 39 hour trip. While I was home, I observed that Dave has really staked his claim as king of the castle. He is a bit quirky and likes things a certain way. For example he mentioned to me  “We make the bed every morning now.” Oh do we? It was nice to be home but I felt almost like a guest (a very bitchy outspoken guest but still a guest). My dishes were all rearranged in the cabinets and my bathroom no longer had deodorant, shampoo, conditioner or body wash. The girls had swiped that long ago. Watching TV with my husband has never been easy but now that he has had complete control of the remote for 7 months it is brutal. Tuesday evening I watched  7 minutes of The Big Bang Theory, 10 minutes of the Blues game, 6 minutes of an incredibly boring World War II program and 8 minutes of Tosh.0. I realized then that I only have a few weeks to devise my plan to successfully overthrow the current regime in the house and regain control of the house, TV and the skillfully made bed. I am pretty confident that it will be like taking candy from a baby. My prediction is that he will be watching Lifetime movies by Feb 3rd.

     Monday night Dave asked me if I would mind cleaning his shower while I was home. A little back story on the shower…When we were under construction to modify our home it was difficult to add a master bathroom in the space that we had. Our contractor suggested we modify the plans and install a tub/shower combo. I am a bath person and wanted to keep them separate. In order to do so, Dave’s shower had to be pretty small. My bathtub is shorter than a standard tub but much deeper. Now that everything is done, I feel pretty bad and wish I would have conceded and done the tub/shower combo. If you take the size of a shower in a stateroom on a cruise ship and cut it in thirds you would have the dimensions of Dave’s shower. If he gains any weight he may have to spray himself with Pam in order to fit. 

     Because I have  always been  a submissive wife, (did anyone buy that?) The next morning I sprayed down the shower walls with bathroom cleaner and went downstairs to do some work for my online classes.  An hour later I went back upstairs to tackle the shower. The soap scum and hard water stains were pretty bad. Seriously did he not think to do this anytime in the last 7 months? Last April I tried to hire a cleaning lady. The week she was supposed to start, she broke her foot. She told me she would get in touch as soon as she was more mobile. I have yet to hear back from her. I think someone may have tipped her off about us and she headed (limped) for the hills. 

     After scraping the soap scum off my brand new beautiful bathroom tile I decided it was time for my quirky husband to make a change for 2016. I hid every last bar of his coveted Irish Spring soap. Who still uses bar soap?  And those that do, why Irish Spring? I bought him some manly smelling body wash and placed it in his mini shower and patiently waited for the shit to hit the fan. He was less then pleased with me when he realized operation soap modification was in full swing. I explained to him that I had tucked away his Irish Spring in a very special place and he could have it back on Feb 1st.  I left for the airport a few hours later…I did not make the bed.