Steady On.
So, I talked to my mom again today and she said that in the
past 24 hours Sarah had lost 15 pounds. Of water. Because when she went unconscious, and the beginning of her sick,
she gained something like 40 pounds of water. She went from being 136 pounds to somewhere between 170 & 180. But
she's losing the water, and they predict that while she'll still be in the ICU on Sunday, that she'll hopefully be off
the ventilator by then. Providing they get all of this excess fluid off her. Today she was agitated, because her body
is doing well enough to recognize that it was time for her period (YAY!) and she had cramps. Her eyes were open at
different points and while she wasn't able to squeeze my parents' hands yet, she was able to nod or shake her head in
response to questions. And mom says that although it was clear she didn't understand where she was, she obviously
recognized her. Its fantastic. Baby steps.
My sister is very well loved. Three of her friends drove an
hour to sit at the hospital with my parents last night and brought my sister her teddy bear, Theodore. Her friend
Jessica, who found Sarah unconcious, had cleaned Sarah's dorm room and was going to do her laundry. Sadly, there's
pretty well no way Sarah will be going back to school this semester, which will frustrate and depress her after
fighting so hard to get back after the neuropathy last semester. Anyway, Mom didn't take the 3 girls in to see her,
because it just would have scared them. They'll come back again when she's awake and about. She's gotten lots of well
wishes, Harry (her boss and good friend) bought poster board and passed it out for her friends on campus to make her
giant get well signs to paper the walls in, and today she got a get well card from the custodian in her dormitory.
She's THAT well loved.
While I don't subscribe to any one particular belief, I do appreciate all the prayers
and hope and good thoughts that everyone has been providing Sarah. I love each and every one of you, and I am so much
more than lucky to have you all in my life. Thank you. She's going to pull through, I believe it. I have FAITH in
it.
keep me in your heart for awhile…
she's steady on. not out of the woods yet, but stead on.
it all falls apart so fast…
I'm having a hard time with this. I'm agitated a lot. I
vented at Derek earlier, its just so unfair. I pace, I can't concentrate, I find myself wringing my hands a lot, I'm
surprised I haven't reverted to chewing on my nails, but I find I'm eating a lot more than I ought to be, just to keep
my hands busy. I need to work on my thesis but I'm having a hard time finding the patience and the desire. I'm
exhausted a lot (which actually isn't new at all) but its very tempting to curl up and sleep away my worry. I stare at
the phone a lot, willing it to ring with good news, and terrified to answer it when it does ring. I fear becoming even
more bitter and cynical than I was before, and I really fear falling back into the spiral of depression that I lived in
for more of my life than I'd have liked to. I talk to my mom about how worried and stressed I am, but at the same time
I feel bad about doing it because she's just as bad off as I am, probably worse. I'm just glad that I have her, and my
dad. I keep telling myself Sarah's going to be okay, but the truth is that I've been finding it hard to believe
myself. I cry a lot. I'm a cry-er anyway, but this has a reason and a source, and I'm scared to death...I'll be okay,
I know how strong I am, underneath it all, I just need to get through minute by minute at this point.
big yellow taxi…
Well, some good, some bad to report here. My sister came
through the worst bits fine, like I said before, and they were hoping to have her off the ventilator by the end of the
day today. Sadly, last night that had to remedicate her and up the amount the ventilator was breathing for her. She
was better this morning when my mom called me to update me, but it's going to be a lot slower than the doctors hoped it
would be. Baby steps, and she should be back on her feet soon enough. She's one amazing, tough cookie and I love her
so much.
This has been incredibly hard on me. I've gone into random fits of depression and crying jags,
and last night I just shut off completely. Derek was trying to talk to me, like the good boy that he is, and I didn't
have more than one word at a time to say to him. I'm exhausted a large chunk of the time, so I'm kind of trying to lay
low a little bit and stop worrying so much. Everything's going to come out in the wash...It has to.
paved paradise, put up a parking lot…
This entry is not going to be a happy one. I apologize in
advance for its depressive tone, and I don't expect anything in terms of comments or sympathy.
Yesterday,
at 4.31 central time, my phone rang while I was in an informal critique with my friend and professor, Ron. Being that
it was a number I didn't recognize, coming from New Hampshire, I took the call. It was my mom, and I knew something
terrible was happening. It turns out that the terrible thing that was happening was that my sister is in the hospital.
She's been battling insulin dependant diabetes as an insulin resistant diabetic for about 9ish years now, (she's almost
21) and early yesterday morning she went into a diabetic coma. Luckily, one of her friends found her, called 911 when
she was unresponsive and she was airlifted to the hospital at Dartmouth. Last night things were really scary. We
weren't sure she would make it through the night. Today, they know she has the use of all 4 of her limbs, although she
is heavily sedated because she is fighting the ventilator, trying to breathe on her own. This is good that she wants
to breathe on her own, but bad because she has a lot of fluid around her lungs, making it imperative she breathe a
certain amount of oxygen at a certain rate, hence the ventilator. They are optomistic of a slow (1-2 weeks) but full
recovery. Her heartbeat is strong and her CTScan came back showing that there was no swelling in her brain at all (a
major concern for patients with diabetic ketoacidosis--the thing that causes the diabetic coma).
For those
of you that don't know, my little sister is my best friend. We lived together in the same room until I stopped living
at home full time, and I love her more than anything in the whole wide world. We're very close and so this has been
really frustrating for me being so far away and not knowing how to fix anything.
Anyway, we're optomistic.