Life Turns a Corner

"Out of the blue" on Saturday morning (the 11th) the thought came to me that I should quit my full-time job so I could care for both my aging mother and George, who we can see will be an invalid for some unknown length of time while he recovers from his PE (pulmonary embolisms). By the end of that day, George, Mother, and I had agreed on the change. Talk about a sudden change of course! Life turned a corner, and it didn't even warn me with a turn signal.

Mother will be 92 in April. We have a trip to Georgia planned for her birthday, to visit Alice's family. Mother has lived in her own apartment for over 2 years in a senior retirement community. She has helpers who come in, morning and evening, to help her dress, bathe, do laundry, etc. Lately it's become evident that she needs someone available all the time, but she simply will not consider going to an assisted living home.

With George disabled, I am overloaded -- I can't manage an outside job and take care of my family and home too. I have resigned from CBS as of the end of March, which is the print deadline for the 23 courses we're publishing this year. The publishing team is working hard to make the deadline, so I'll stay and finish up that big project. Though I really love my job, I am at peace about quitting -- this is the right thing to do.

George's Journey to Health: How it Started

It's time for me to start up this blog again. I've had a job -- Senior Editor for Adult Curriculum at Community Bible Study -- that keeps me glued to a computer all day long, writing and editing, so when I get home, I don't do much writing. However, now that we need a platform to keep people informed on the newest challenge in our lives, I'll be blogging more often.

George spent 3 days in St. Francis hospital in early February, being treated for pulmonary emboli (blood clots) in his left lung. He had been getting weaker and finding it more difficult to breathe since January 14th, when he experienced an extremely sharp pain in his left side that wouldn't go away. After a few days of him yelling out every time he moved, we went to see the Physician's Assistant he usually sees at our doctor's office. She decided that he had pulled a muscle, and prescribed some medicine. It was on a Friday evening 3 weeks later that we finally decided he should go to the ER. They discovered multiple blood clots in his lung and the oxygen level in his blood was 81 -- extremely low. He was admitted and began treatment to thin his blood so he wouldn't produce more clots and to dissolve the ones in his lung. It is taking a long time for his lung to recover from the damage, and he can't go without oxygen. He's tethered by a 40-foot tube to a nifty little machine that makes oxygen, day and night.