Crafting Therapy

Some people see a psychiatrist when times get tough.

I craft.

My grandmother (Memere, it's french and I probably don't spell it correctly) has been sick for a while. She had been living in AZ, the family (Memere included) felt she would be better off in NH where we have more family that could help her out.

With my awesome MIL watching Emma, I flew out to AZ in January (on a Saturday night) to help Memere get packed and ready for the big move. Monday, 2 days after I got there (3 days before she was scheduled to fly to NH) she ended up in the hospital. My sister, Amber (who lives in NH), was scheduled to fly out on Tuesday and fly with Memere to NH. Amber's son ended up with croup, so couldn't get out here until Wednesday.

On Wednesday, Memere's doctor informed me that she would not be ready to fly the next day. Amber was already in the air. Amber landed, helped me get the rest of Memere's stuff packed up (the movers left with all the furniture Wednesday). She hung with me and Memere at the hospital for a while, we had dinner, rented a hotel room, watched a movie and went to sleep. Amber flew home without Memere on Thursday.

I crashed at the hotel for a few nights, and stayed at a friends house (3 hours away) 2 nights. The doctor gave us the ok to schedule her flight for Monday. We got discharged from the hospital on Monday morning and drove directly to the hospital.

By the way, Southwest was phenomenal throughout this entire ordeal. We changed tickets I don't know how many times, and bought them last minute. Every time we spoke with someone through Southwest, they were very understand, supportive and cooperative. And they got us awesome tickets for awesome deals.

Anyway, the flight went better then I planned. We landed and drove right to the medical rehabilitation place the Memere was going to so that she could regain her strength.

Throughout this entire ordeal, I made 3 people hats and 2 doll hats, a handful of baby hats (that ended up being to short so I need to redo).

I flew back to AZ on Tuesday (the day after getting to NH). My flight was the last one to get out before the airport was shut down due to weather.

I spent a few days at my friends house, trying to eat (which I had failed to do while Memere was in the hospital), sleep (yup, failed to do that also), and relax (goes without saying really that relaxing was not happening at the hospital). I crafted with my BFF Yvonne. Even managed to hit up a cute little yarn shop where I bought some fun wool yarn (that has been crocheted and felted into a fun little bag).

I left Yvonne's house on Friday to drive back to IA.

Oh, I also got rear-ended one of the days I was driving from the hospital to my BFF's house. I mean really, was that necessary?

Turns out it was. I got all the crappy stuff out of the way and my drive home was more then I could have asked for. It only took me 2 days, the roads where beautiful (instead of icy like I was expecting), traffic was minimal, and I got to listen to Brisinger the entire way.

I was home for about 3 weeks when Memere took a turn for the worse. Turned out she had a raging infection and a whole in her colon that required surgery. She still hadn't regained much strength, so the outlook wasn't great.

Amber called me with the news Tuesday morning about the surgery and such. Emma and I where on a flight Tuesday, arriving Wednesday morning.

Memere had her surgery Thursday night. With in a day or two she was already making improvements. She looked better, sounded better, and felt better.

While there I crocheted one hat and a few odd little critters.

Emma and I left for home on the following Thursday. We took the train. We love the train.

Memere was doing well enough that she was moved from the hospital to a different rehab facility.

Got to my in-laws on Friday night. Spent the weekend with them (as was the original plan before heading to NH).

I got a call from Amber yesterday letting me know that Memere was back in the hospital. We didn't find anything out last night, but Amber called me this morning to give me an update. Memere has two veins in her pelvis that are, for some reason, bleeding internally. For some reason or other, the doctors are unable to operate to close them.

Due to all the other issues, she is on blood thinners. They can't really stop the blood thinners because she is already full of blood clots. If they keep giving her the blood thinner, she will bleed out. Right now the doctors are walking the thin line between enough blood thinners, but not too much.

Essentially my Memere is dying. The doctors are keeping her alive long enough for family to get to her to say good-byes.

So, not even home a week and I am currently sitting at an airport in Milwaukee. My connecting flight was originally schedule to leave at 8:30ish p.m. It is now delayed till tomorrow morning at 2 a.m.

Looks like I am spending the night in the airport.

Good thing I brought some yarn with me :)