Kindness and Blessings...

Well, the last few weeks have been busy, crazy, trying, and fun. On January 28th, our stake had Sis. Julie Beck up for our stake enrichment meeting. I was so excited! As we pulled into the parking lot, Apple Village called and told us Grandma was non-responsive, and her blood pressure was extremely low. Mom told me to stay with Amy and Roz, and she'd just go, but I didn't. We took Amy's van and sped over, glad we were pretty much across the highway from her. So, after seeing how she was, we called the paramedics and spent the next 9 hours in the emergency room. All of her tests came back fine, but she wasn't fine. So, they took her in and did this nuclear test that takes about 45 minutes, with her being in a tube the whole time. It ended up that she has multiple blood clots in her lungs. The ER doctor was going to admit her, and at about 12:30 a.m., said a doctor needed to talk to us first. This "hospitalist" guy came in and was pretty tense and defensive and told us either he would treat her, and she'd probably end up falling and bleed to death internally (she falls a big fall every couple of weeks, so...), or he wouldn't treat her, and she'll eventually die from the pulmonary embolisms at anytime. That's a lot of pressure to have to choose at an instant, to have to decide whether or not your going to let your mom die from something has got to be the hardest decision for someone. Mom shouldn't have to make decisions like that. It ended up that we decided not to treat it, and instead have hospice coming in to "make her comfortable." Such a hard decision!

Once we got her back to Apple Village, she just got right back into her regular routine! We were so grateful for this. It made it so we could go to St. George the next week. Mom had a music conference that she HAD to be to, for the credit, to renew her license. We were going to go on Wednesday, the 4th, so we could go play in Las Vegas, and I could go to the World Market Design Center (which I still need to do!!!) Mom started to get pretty sick on Tuesday, and by Wednesday, she was pretty much a disaster, and I was pretty sick too, so I made an executive decision, and we didn't go until Thursday, so we could rest a bit. While we were down there, I had a great time playing with Porter, Rhett, Bergen, Jason, Daisy (the calf in the backyard, that I actually fed), and ALee. ALee and I got to go shopping and look for accessories for her beautiful house, which was so fun! Mom, however, was sicker than I've ever seen her, and sicker than she remembers ever being. She did her classes, and the rest the time she sat in the lazyboy. Jason and the boys built her fires in the fireplace, because she was freezing the entire time. We did get to go to a movie, New in Town, which ended up being quite funny. Renee Zellweger and Harry Conick, Jr. are an odd couple, but it was still fun! We didn't sleep much, the whole time, and the first night, I'd gone into the bonus room around 2:00, because I couldn't sleep. I just laid down on the futon, with it still up like a sofa, because I couldn't figure out how that worked. I was tired! Anyways~ I shifted my position at some point and the futon threw me out and then flipped on top of me. I thought I broke my shoulder, but at that time of night, everything's horrendous! After that, I used it like a bed, because it was then laying out! DUH!!! On Sunday, Mom was so sick, Jason gave her a blessing and we left. She seemed better during the ride, but by the time we got home, she was worse again! So, Collin came over and gave her a blessing, as well. The priesthood is such an amazing thing! Well, Monday we got her to the doctor, and she has pneumonia, the flu, and two ear infections. What a mess! She has been home all week, which she's never done before!

I called Collin to tell him the prognosis, and he talked about it with Ryan, who is in our old ward. Ryan called me later that day, and told me he'd called the relief society president in Hobbs Creek, because he didn't know who to call from our ward. Right after that, a member of our relief society presidency in the 28th ward called to check on her. I'd assumed that Laralee, from HC, had called our ward, but she hadn't. Anyways, people have just randomly dropped over dinners. We're so grateful for them. It's not that I can't cook, because I have been, but it's been so nice. The guy across the street let me borrow his snowblower, during the huge storm on Monday, and then Brandon did it the next day. We'd gotten a warning about our sidewalks not being clean in front of the house and north of us, but the two houses up were vacant. Anyways~ someone did that for us yesterday. Today, someone did our driveway, again. Then this evening, I was sitting on the couch and heard some noise outside. A couple of young men from our ward, one of the leaders, and his son that is in my primary class were shoveling our mountain, that was covering the stairs. They then gave us each a valentine, and a red rose! How cute!

Today is Collin's birthday, and we went to the Draper Temple open house. It was beautiful! What a great experience for kids. As we were walking out, I asked Ford what he thought, and he said, "That was so fun!!!! and so beautiful!!!!!" Then we went to lunch with Grandma and Grandpa. Fun day!