Some time in the late afternoon of Friday, my mom got up to go to the bathroom and had a major blood pressure drop. Her head fell over when she was sitting, so my dad rushed over to shake her and call her name. She wasn't responding, so the nurse called 911. (She was given a full time hospice nurse just recently.) It is weird how this sticks in my memory so vividly, but I remember my dad chuckling as he told the story a couple times. I guess it made me feel like he was doing OK. He did this when he mentioned they sent multiple ambulences over. I am guessing he meant something more like more than one thing with a siren, but not really sure. So she went to emergency and they worked for a long time with drugs to get her stable, which happened around 9pm. She was conscious and seemed fine at this point I guess. They put her in a regular room and brought my dad a huge chair he could sleep in (that was the other thing he chuckled about - he called it the "executive chair"). He said they watched some TV and he sat with her until she fell asleep. Then he went to sleep but woke up around 3am. Everything still looked fine, so he went to tell the nurses he was going to run home. He got to worrying he hadn't even shut the door to the house when he ran out. The house is very close to the hospital. He was probably only gone about 15 minutes, but her heart suddenly failed in that time, and that is when she passed. I know my dad feels terrible it happened that way, but I really think she may have chosen it. She always talked about not wanting people to see her a certain way and wanting to be alone at the end, so I truly think this is what she wanted.
At least we didn't have any major birthday plans to cancel. We were playing it by ear anyway depending on the weather. I had bought some picnic food we hoped to take out some place, but that was about it. The rest of the day seems surreal now. The first thing I had to do was decide what dates I would go to California and get online for tickets. Then I started slowly packing some things. I had started Ron's cake the day before, so I was determined to do at least that much for his birthday. The crazy thing was how fast the day went. It was like I was in some kind of time warp. It was into the afternoon before I knew it, and of course my back went out after sitting on the bed and twisting around folding and organizing clothes. But I somehow hobbled through finishing Ron's cake, and then I sat down to frost and decorate it.
I doubt I would have even taken a picture, but Ron had promised his peeps on the Atkins forum that he would show it to them after going on about it the first time I made it.
This year's theme was Superman as you can see. The day I finally made it to the party store, there was really not much choice in anything Ron would like for things that had cake toppers, so I decided to buy some toys to put on top. It worked out fairly well I think.
Orion patiently waiting. If you look closely, you an see he already has frosting smears around his mouth from licking the bowl.
Getting through to Sarah was a whole story on its own. Her cell phone is not working, so I usually get ahold of her through her boyfriend or best friend. I couldn't get either of them, but left a message for her to call me. I didn't hear from her, so I finally decided to send a text to her boyfriend's phone. I really didn't want to tell her that way, but she hasn't been great about returning calls in the past, even if I say it is important. She got back to me in the afternoon and was so hysterical she couldn't even talk. :( I think that is going to be harder for me than my own reaction. She had to call me back when she calmed down a little and said she will meet me in Simi tomorrow.
So I made it through the day somehow. Time has a funny way of marching on no matter what life throws at us. The next couple weeks should be interesting to say the least.
I doubt I would have even taken a picture, but Ron had promised his peeps on the Atkins forum that he would show it to them after going on about it the first time I made it.
This year's theme was Superman as you can see. The day I finally made it to the party store, there was really not much choice in anything Ron would like for things that had cake toppers, so I decided to buy some toys to put on top. It worked out fairly well I think.
Orion patiently waiting. If you look closely, you an see he already has frosting smears around his mouth from licking the bowl.
Getting through to Sarah was a whole story on its own. Her cell phone is not working, so I usually get ahold of her through her boyfriend or best friend. I couldn't get either of them, but left a message for her to call me. I didn't hear from her, so I finally decided to send a text to her boyfriend's phone. I really didn't want to tell her that way, but she hasn't been great about returning calls in the past, even if I say it is important. She got back to me in the afternoon and was so hysterical she couldn't even talk. :( I think that is going to be harder for me than my own reaction. She had to call me back when she calmed down a little and said she will meet me in Simi tomorrow.
So I made it through the day somehow. Time has a funny way of marching on no matter what life throws at us. The next couple weeks should be interesting to say the least.
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