Some kind of July (so far!)

I've been spending less time online lately, and some of you may know why. My mom had a pretty serious heart attack early (like 1 am) on June 30th. She was taken by ambulance to the nearest hospital, where she had a stent placed in her heavily clogged artery. We also later found out she had pneumonia (possibly walking pneumonia) but didn't find that out until she was discharged. So she was on the breathing tubes for that whole Monday. It's always hard to see someone in that condition. She seemed able to hear me and tried to speak, but for the most part she was really out of it. The next day she was awake and somewhat coherent. Tubes out. She knew we were there and she spoke in a whisper. The following day she was a little better, actually kind of grumpy and irritable about her shoulders hurting and her throat.

Thursday morning as we prepared to go visit we had a call from my dad, they were releasing her. We were all quite shocked by this, we'd all planned for a longer stay. And the oddest thing? She was in the ICU the entire time. She was released straight from the ICU! We were flabbergasted! We thought surely she'd have been moved to a regular room for a bit of recovery. But apparently she had improved so well, that they just sent her home. Color us perplexed! So we went to see her on Friday, the 4th and spent a few hours. She seemed fairly normal. Still had a cough from the pneumonia and she'd lost what little voice she had, so we really had to listen hard to hear her.

I spoke with her this morning (I've actually talked to her a bunch of times, mostly short 'how are you doing?' type calls so as not to stress her voice) but today we had an actual conversation. She seems to be bouncing back really well. We have trouble visiting due to her smoking (yes, even after this whole thing, but she seems to have cut back) and the smoke really messes us up. I get migraines and my little one gets a cough.

So after all that, doing my regular online things (reading blogs, looking at photos, etc) didn't seem quite so important. I took some time to read. Watched mindless TV. And grasped the reality that a)my mom's artery probably does look like the one I saw on that quit-smoking ad all those years ago; the one I couldn't watch after the first time because it made me sick to be looking at my mom's artery. b)this near miss didn't make her stop smoking. c)her smoking will probably what kills her. d)I don't think she will ever stop smoking and that makes me incredibly sad. Even now, I looked for that commercial to link here, and I watched a small portion and I nearly vomited, so I didn't link it.

Anyway...


This lovely image brought to you by the California wildfire smoke drifting into Utah, making our sunsets blood-red. While they are beautiful, it's still rather tragic. I myself have seen the benefit of the fires that raged in Yellowstone in 1988 (someone correct me if I have the year wrong), but I'm not sure California will benefit in quite the same way. Especially since they've had the fires two years in a row. It's just heartbreaking! Insignificant words from someone who can't really do anything to help, but still...

We went to the park the other day to play ball. Well, balls, really. Kicked soccer balls, tossed footballs, and played a little Frisbee. Can I just say that I LOVE Frisbee? I am so glad it was invented! It's like, almost the only sport I'm good at. I think I'm good at croquet too, but it's been a while since I played it. I took my Fisheye camera to the park that day and I can't wait to see what images I caught with it! Gotta take the roll of film to Costco to be developed. I LOVE that camera people! It's so much fun!

Well, I guess that's all for now. I'll try to update more often. I'm still trying not to vomit from that video. Bleh. Every time I think about it...

Ok, peace out!