Boring, busy blogger.

Sorry for the boring blog lately. :p Life has just been too busy.

We're laying the floors in our living room this week. There is only about 5 pieces of furniture in there now, but they're all heavy and/or bulky. There's the couch, an oak bookcase, a giant antique steamer trunk, the huge entertainment armoire, and the antique upright piano. That piano is so big and heavy that I can hardly move it myself, even though it's on wheels. We'll just see how this goes. :p

The kids and I (and my sister-in-law and two nephews) were dyeing eggs at my parents' house on Saturday afternoon. My grandma was there with us, having been brought over from the care home by my mom. She's been living in the (fantastic) care home since last August or September. She had a stroke the middle of last August (her second), so once she left the rehabilitation hospital, she couldn't go back to her 3000 square foot Victorian home. She had been reluctant to move before the stroke, but she was very relieved that she didn't have to care for all of that anymore once we moved her.

Well, on Saturday, she started complaining that her hand didn't feel right. (Well, that's what we got. She doesn't really speak since the stroke. But, she was gesturing toward her hand, which looked like a claw. Odd.) Mom (who is an RN) thought she was having a cramp, which sometimes happens. She took her over to the sink to run some warm water and massage it. Then grandma started moaning and her right side of her face started twitching. Mom hurried her into the dining room to set her in a chair, but grandma collapsed before they got there. Mom is strong, and grandma is small, so mom managed to lower her to the floor and yell, "Call 911!" I was holding my 1 month old nephew, so my sister-in-law grabbed the phone and dialed while I passed her the baby and she passed me the phone. She didn't know the pertinent info (address, etc.) that 911 would need. Meanwhile, grandma is having a seizure on the floor and mom is making sure she doesn't hurt herself further. 911 sent an ambulance very quickly and grandma had come back by then. At one point, she truly looked dead. Mom was monitoring her pulse and breathing and they both stopped for a very short time, but she came back to consciousness on her own before they got there. In the short time it took to get her up on the stretcher, she had already started getting mad about having to go to the hospital.

Today, grandma is back at the care home. It was determined that it was just a seizure, not another stroke, not a clot, not a heart attack. Her medications have been adjusted. And she's using words that she hasn't used since before her stroke in August. In fact, shortly after she got to the hospital she said, clear as day, "What am I doing here?" The brain is an amazing thing.

It was a frightening experience, and I had a bit of a flashback to just after Easter 9 years ago when my grandpa collapsed right next to me in that same house. He had just tapped me on the arm, and I turned to him thinking he was going to tell me a joke. He fell down, rode off in an ambulance, and never came back. I know her time will come, but I think it's an Easter miracle that grandma came back to us this time.

Later this week, pink socks, completed yesterday.