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Captain’s Log: A Stab at WTF?

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December 18, 2016

 

Mom - Oct 2016
Mom with her new Grandbaby, Oct 2016

Hi Friends, Family, and well… Everyone!

TK and I cannot get over the flood of well wishes, prayers, love, and support that continues to come our way. Some of you have a sense of what is going on, some of you are looking for updates, and some of you are wondering if we are OK because you are just hearing the news. I’m going to break with my usual social media vs. private family rules and do my best to answer all of you here, because I cannot possibly keep up with individual messages much as I would like to.

Sometime Friday morning, my beautiful, talented, (way-too-young-for-this-bologna), boundlessly caring, (holy-crap-you-were-just-playing-with-your-grandkids-a-few-days-ago-like-you-were-still-in-your-thirties), mother, Colleen Thompson McElfresh had a series of medical issues: bleeding on her brain, a stroke, and burst aneurisms. What caused which is still hard to say. And may likely never be fully unraveled. Luckily, her awesome roomie heard that something was not right and she was connected to medical personnel very quickly.

Thanks in large part to the incredible diligence of Stessy and the Bluebirds, by the end of the day Friday she had been medevaced to Richmond so that she could get glued back together. (No, I’m not making that up. We’re holding this tough ‘ol bird together with glue right now!)

While still on a ventilator, in the last two days she’s shown lots of signs off fighting back HARD! Toes are wiggling, arms are moving, and we’ve even had some response with head bobs. We’re trying to be realistic. The doctors are advising us to be cautious in reading too much into anything. Today has been extra busy: nurses, doctors, social workers, nurses… (P.S. the nurses are AMAZING here!!!)

You’d think we’d just be sitting here, waiting for her to wake up… bored senseless… Au contraire, mon amis! This lady is a slave driver even from the vegetative state! For the next two weeks, there are huge concerns about stroking, more bleeding, and things can change in an instant. So nurses are moving around her CONSTANTLY, monitoring her, helping keep her comfortable, poking, testing, adjusting… Its not very restful!! But under their amazing diligence, she stays calm and is slowly mending. We are their team as much as hers right now!

At this time, it’s impossible to give anyone any idea of what the future holds and I imagine it will be for several weeks yet. This will be a triathlon effort for her. For now, no news truly is good news. Spikes are unsustainable, the best thing is truly for her to tortoise through this: slow and steady really will win this race!

In addition, on Friday/Saturday I called hospice to assist me with my grandfather/her father’s end-of-life care. Nothing we didn’t anticipate, but the timing, I admit… Well, it just plain sucks. But he’s comfortable. Quietly resting. In no pain. Just slipping quietly away in his own way. A bad case of the O.L.D.S. he would say to me if he could.

I’m usually a very a private person. You’ll notice that my posts tend to be about the band, my work, occasionally the farm. But my family life has been my own and I’ve always been very choosey about what to share. My own complicated, difficult but awesome, messy but loving, crazy organism. So in a way, dealing with our current situation being so public is actually one of the hardest parts of this whole mess.

Mom was always the social one! And out of respect for her and the awesome power of the prayer and hope that is so much a part of her life, I’m going to do my best to be as open and accessible as the situation allows. I will post any updates and changes here as soon as I am humanly able. In return, I hope you can all be patient with me and respect the that this means I’m operating outside my comfort zone in many ways. I know that working together, we’re ALL going to help Mom get through this.

At this time, NICU policy is no flowers or gifts, but don’t worry, there is going to be LOTS of time to shower this lovely lady with love!

Keep praying. Keep sending your thoughts. I think it’s working and I do truly appreciate everything that EVERYONE is doing to help.

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Life's too short for decaf coffee or annoying emails.

What I can't promise is regular, weekly emails. What I can promise is sporadic, humorous updates with a serious amount of gorgeous glassy adventures inside. Occasionally, there might even be a chance to join me for a cup o' coffee. (The really caffeinated kind!)

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