The next day I was able to talk to Mom, who didn't know much more than it was a "mild" heart attack, that she would need surgery, but not right away. My medical brain knew what that meant and I breathed a sigh of relief. I was able to talk to the Nurse Practitioner caring for Mom and she confirmed the information in "medical talk".
They had to wait a week to do surgery because of some lab abnormalities, so it was the following Friday that she went to surgery for a 3 vessel bypass. She technically had quadruple bypass, since one of the vessels had two blockages. Thankfully (yes thank you thank you thank you God), Lisa was able to fly to Las Vegas on Thursday to be there for Mom during and after surgery.
I hated not being there, but in retrospect it was probably better. I wasn't able to go since I was scheduled to work that weekend. I work 4 nights on and have 10 off and had missed my nearly all of my previous run of shifts because I had a random attack of pneumonia.
I was at work that Friday night in the ICU of my little hospital. Thankfully, it wasn't very busy and I was able to get regular updates from Lisa via text. It looked initially like all went fairly well. They were having a little trouble keeping her blood pressure up, but they reassured Lisa it was not unexpected and Lisa headed back to Mom's house for some much needed sleep. She texted me, probably after midnight, that Mom was headed back to surgery because her blood pressure wouldn't come up and they thought she was bleeding internally. We spent the rest of the night texting back and forth, waiting for news. It turned out that she did not have bleeding. My sister earned her angel wings for being there during this so stressful time. It wasn't until the day Mom was discharged, when I was finally there, that I was able to ask the nurse practitioner exactly what happened. The words "flash pulmonary edema" made my blood run cold. I didn't realize she had come that close to the edge of death.
All told, Mom spent 5 days on the ventilator in the ICU. She was discharged 2 weeks after her heart attack. I flew down to Las Vegas on Thursday the 16th, to join Lisa. The initial plan was for me to get there on Thursday and fly back to Montana with her on Sunday so she could recuperate for a few weeks at our house. Since she didn't get discharged until the 17th, there was no way for her to be ready to fly on Sunday. Our tickets were with an airline that only flies to Las Vegas and back to Kalispell on Sundays and Thursday, hooray for my small town. So I was there for a week. Sadly it meant missing Brendan's 11th birthday, which caused tears from both him and me, but he was a trooper and understood that I had to be with Mom. Besides, I was bringing back a grandma to live with us for a month, so Happy Birthday!
To say all of this was a blessing in disguise will probably make some of you choke on your hot chocolate, this being December as I write this and finally find time to catch up the blog a bit. But it's true. If there hadn't been complications, I would have missed a truly incredible opportunity. Lisa, Mom and I spent a week together. The three of us haven't been in the same room for 20 years or so and certainly not for the quality and quantity of time we had. Lisa and I were also without kids, something which, for her, hasn't happened in 20 years and for me, in 11 years. So there we were, the three of us, at Mom's house, talking, watching movies, reading, watching Mom nap. She wasn't at her best, obviously, and she was still in quite a lot of pain, but even she says she wouldn't have traded that week for the world. Neither would I. One night, during a game of cards, we got the giggles. Mom laughed so hard she was crying because her chest hurt so bad and I couldn't breathe (still getting over the pneumonia cough).
After a week, I flew back to Montana with Mom in tow. She stayed a total of five weeks and recovered at a remarkable pace. The only thing that limited her was her back, which will never be right. She did cardiac rehab, read, washed dishes and bossed me around my garden. She also attended all of Brendan's football games while she was here and that made him very happy. She is back in Vegas now, continuing to heal, continuing to be a FORMER smoker and planning to move to Montana in the (I hope) near future. I am sure she will spend a fair amount of the long Montana winters in Texas with Lisa.
