Alaska - Part 3

We had a few glasses of wine at the house and then went for dinner.  During dinner, my sister called, which lately causes a feeling of dread and adrenalin rush for the seconds before she tells me what the latest news is.  This time, the news was good.  Our mom had survived the surgery and the internal damage was not as extensive as everyone had feared.  The doctors were able to restore blood flow to her organs and her heart was still strong.  They told us that she was stable, but they would have to go back in tomorrow to remove her gall bladder and any other dead tissue.  While getting past one major hurdle, she is experiencing the vascular issues related to Covid, meaning she has blood clots that keep forming and they don’t know why.  This has been like Covid whack-a-mole where they fix one thing and some new horrific thing pops up just to flip you the finger.  With some sense of temporary relief, we finished dinner.

For those people (pretty much everyone) who have made fun of our yellow jackets, while at dinner we spotted a fellow yellow-jacket person, I chased her down and made her come back to our table so we could bond and take a picture.  Take that yellow-jacket haters!  There are more of us out there.

With a few more hours to kill before heading to the airport, we took another stab at finding the Northern Lights.  We drove to a different lookout spot and waited for the sky to get completely dark, which didn’t happen until about 10:30 and just watched and waited.  We finally had to give up some time between 11-11:30 with no sightings.  My flight home was thankfully uneventful and when I landed at O’Hare Sunday afternoon, the news was that my mom was still stable.  As I left literally with just the clothes on my back and a backpack, Damon stayed behind to settle everything up and will be home tomorrow. 

As of today (Monday), my mom has had three procedures/surgeries to repair an intestinal bleed, restore vascular flow to major organs, remove her gall bladder, remove 3’ of intestine and look for clots.  She is fully sedated and currently stable waiting for another procedure this evening to look for any additional damage.  She turns 82 one week from today and is defying the odds at every turn.  We are by no means out of the woods, but we remain ever hopeful for a positive outcome.  I am not a religious person and normally do not subscribe to “thoughts and prayers”, but for anyone reading this who believes in the power of prayer, by all means, give it all you’ve got.  We need it.

On a final note, we are the people who never thought this could happen to us.  It only happens to other people.  You read about it in the news.  It is a stranger or a friend of a friend.  Well, it is happening to us and living through having a loved one go through this is absolute hell.  Covid is not a joke.  It can happen to you, it can happen to a loved one, it can happen if you are otherwise healthy, it can happen if you are partially vaccinated, it can happen if you typically wear a mask and it can happen if you are careful.  We have NO IDEA how or where or when she caught it.  If you can get a vaccine, get it.  Even if you THINK you are immune or likely to have “just a flu” or are asymptomatic, you have no idea if someone’s mother or father or sister or brother may not.