It's been over 30 days since my mother had her brain aneurysm. Apparently if one can survive 30 days, then they are no longer in danger. Of course we all know that's a bit of a fallacy - we're all in danger all the time, but it would seem that if you can go 30 days without having the aneurysm...re-...what? Reburst? (Sorry if that's graphic) then you simply won't have another one. So she's had all of the various tubes and drains and shunts and needles removed, and even the tracheotomy is gone ...

The news is not bad, but it is the same.   She is still having vasospasms - narrowing of the arteries within the brain, potentially restricting blood flow . The doctors say she may have had more angiograms than anyone they’ve seen before. This is good in that they are not waiting until something bad happens before they react.   Yesterday we had heard that she might be “turning a corner”, but today it would appear that there is still concern around the vasospas...

Today has been a day of extreme emotional highs and lows. I have had moments of pure rage and moments of total despair. And I have had one shining moment.   We went to visit my Mom in the hospital and after a while the nursing staff began to prepare to move her for another angiogram. When they do this they must unplug all of the various machines and medications for the brief move. This meant that she began to wake up just a little.   I was telling her (as I do) that ...

She hates it when I call her mother, or mommy, or mamma. I only do it to torture her. Its one of the few teasing jokes I think I can get away with, without actually insulting her. She sometimes takes offense easily.   She doesn’t like people looking at her, or paying attention to her. She prefers to remain in the background, or at least to not be the center of attention.   She would hate this.   I haven’t seen her yet. Apparently there are tubes and wir...

My brother has decided to move back to Colorado. He left this morning at about 7 am. He lived with me for about 6 months. I'm very sad! I really, really enjoyed the chance to get to know him. He's a smart, funny dude, and as he says, "dead sexy" to boot. Good luck little brother. I'm sure you'll be fine! But I'm still sad.

Here are the first pictures of my new niece. Here's an odd thing: I was talking to our PR guy in Canada via IM yesterday. I mentioned that my sister had a baby that morning and could we send out a press release (haha). He said, "Really? My sister had a baby too". Seemed very odd at the time, although I'm sure a statistician wouldn't have been surprised. His sister's baby was over 10 pounds... that's surprising. Anyway, welcome to planet Earth Tom's new nephew Ben Daniel and my niece J...

We've moved. I am tired and sore and wish I was sleeping right now, but we have moved from our crappy 1 bedroom apartment to a big house in the little woods. (We have a few trees out back).   As of yet we have no driveway, because the ground is currently frozen and therefore they cannot in good conscious pour us the driveway and so we will have to wait until spring. Same with the lawn - no landscaping until spring.   Which means muddy doggie feet. We try and keep them off th...

We closed on our house yesterday, and have already started to befoul it. So very happy. And tired. And broke. But happy.

I’m stressed out, I’m pissed off and I’m eating McDonald’s AND drinking a coke – for the second time this week mind you! Our house is supposed to close on the 28 th . I’m not really sure what my problem is, exactly. The house is closing, it has all gone as smoothly as anything could possibly have gone, we have the money we need for closing, and yet…I could just scream. I’m like an angry cat that sees a dog. Someone can walk by my desk and say “good morning” and my back is arched and...

This week has been one of stress for me. I started teaching, but they contacted me so late (I got the job at 6pm on the day before class started) that I have nothing prepared so each week is going to be a constant battle to get ready for the next class, trying to stay one step ahead of the students instead of 10 steps. Other things are going on too, but they need not be discussed here. In all that, I've almost forgotten. Oh yes, we're building a house. Ah! It's much less stressful tha...