Curve Balls!

Yep, that is what yesterday & today were all about.  Don't you just hate when you have a plan and then POOF, it all just goes up in your face!  Well, yesterday (thursday)  I had a super busy day with work and most of it was urgent corporate travel needs based on weather related flight cancellations, etc.  That meant the trip research that I was intending to do wasn't getting attention and then towards the end of the day I received three trip requests for President's week!  Yikes- two weeks notice if that!   So I frantically put out a call for a sub for my Friday spin class.  I hate to do that, but sometimes you just have to and thankfully, Sara was able to sub for me.  I did what I do best- I stayed up until the wee hours (almost 4am) working on trip research and then slept in.  I know my M.O.- I am not very disciplined at getting up earlier to do work, I'm much better working late and going to bed at 4am!  I must have seriously passed out when I hit the pillow because I have NO recollection of Bill's 420am alarm or the 5am kiss good bye!

I slept in until just before 10am, got up briefly to try to get the Mega Ticket for the Country Concerts this season, but to no avail- only crappy seat locations and this was after two days of pre-sale attempts with the same crappy seat choices.  I found out today that I am not alone- another friend and her husband didn't get seats either for the same reason- crappy seat choices!   1030am, I was back in bed for another two hours, then finally got up after checking emails from my phone.  Good thing, I attacked work - one of the President's week trips was ready to confirm and another client was ready to rebook a canceled maiden voyage cruise and things were going so well....until...a call from my mom around 1pm.   She called me from her Dermatologist office to let me know that indeed they wanted her to admit into the hospital.  Now we did talk about this yesterday and I  knew it was a possibility, but I just didn't quite equate that to "TODAY".  So I scrambled to get ready, get a few loose ends tied and then headed up to SF at 315pm to get her and then get her "checked in" by 5pm at CPMC.

Now I'm not really sure what I was thinking, "checked in"- I think I had visions of a hotel, I mean she was a letter from her Dr. to admit her, should be easy- right?  Well, not quite!   We had to admit through the ER so we registered, then were quickly seen by the Triage nurse..then we waited..and waited..and waited until about 7pm when we were finally taken into the ER exam room..where we spent approximately another 4+ hours.  This test, that test, etc. to get all information needed.  By 8pm I was about to eat anything in sight (cafe closed at 7pm) and ended up having the most nutritious dinner of Doritos, M&M's & a few peanuts.  Mom had Corn Chips for dinner!   By 9pm, my phone had died so now I was faced with "killing time" with nothing to OCCUPY myself with...it's amazing how glued to our smart phones we are these days!    Finally, around 1130pm we were escorted up to her room, officially admitted and after some paperwork with her nurse, I finally headed home around 1215pm on a conference call with my sister & brother to fill them in.   Now that is technology at its best!

So the deal with mom is this- she has these AWFUL ulcers on her legs- more on the left and they are seriously nasty and cause her a tremendous amount of pain.  I am surprised she has lived with/coped with this sort of pain for so long.  They were bothering her at Christmas and causing her to not sleep very well and have continued to do that daily ever since and not sure how long before.  She has been seeing Dermatologist regularly and they keep giving her treatments, dressings and oral antibiotics and nothing is really helping.  There have been very slight improvements, but slight.   Well, it's very frustrating because the main cause of these ulcers or lack of them healing is a combination of poor circulation and lack of oxygen.  And these are both results of smoking!   When she left our house back in June last year after her 3 month recovery from her hospital ordeal, any ulcers she had were pretty much healed or very close- she wasn't smoking!  She has gradually started smoking again and I have no idea how much she really has been smoking- she doesn't exactly tell the truth to us kids and she is in a bit of denial herself about the entire thing.  It's so hard to see someone do this sort of damage to themselves- KNOWINGLY!   I think (ok- maybe I hope because I am a Pollyanna type of person) that she finally "gets it"!  She is pissed off at herself for "doing this to herself", she is upset that she is in so much self-caused pain and the Dr. told her point blank- you cannot smoke and if your oxygen levels are not at the right level w/o oxygen assistance you will go home with a tank and my mom does not want that at all!   It's just really hard to see your parents age and have to deal with these health issues and battles.   I told my mom that its very clear that she never really WANTED to quit smoking and that I have a hard time believing and accepting how someone could willingly and knowingly cause themselves this sort of harm.   Time will tell and I hope & pray that she sees that she can't smoke and that she gets whatever help is available to her- counseling, support groups or whatever!  They do want to run a CT scan to make sure there is not something else going on like blood clots that would get int he way of her healing- we'll find out more on that tomorrow.

So of course, all the work that I had planned on getting done this afternoon went out the window as I headed up to SF and spent from 5pm until midnight at CPMC...finally getting home at 1am!    I tried to get a sub for my Body Pump class tomorrow because I knew I'd be getting home late and that I'd be too wound up to go right to bed (go figure)...but nobody replied affirmatively- so up in about 7 hours for me so I can shower and get somewhat ready for my 1030am class and immediately following class I need to "freshen up"- no time to shower and head up to SF to attend a funeral for my friend's father who passed earlier this week.  He was one year older than my mom!  :(   Then since I am already in SF, I'll go visit my mom for a bit before heading back home.   So a curve ball that I was not expecting- but I'll figure it all out!  That's what I do.

Off to bed I go now..think I can finally wind down enough to get some sleep and be ready to attack the day.  All I can say is that I am soooooooooo ready for my massage on Sunday.