DAY 10: Estes Park
The Democrats won a majority in the House. It's being touted as a vote against Bush and the poor handling of the Iraq War. It was all over the news today.
Mom had a mixed day. Emily came early enough to join me for the morning update from doctors on rounds.
I emailed Uncle Pat and Aunts Myra and Terri. Uncle Pat emailed me back quickly and said that he would like to see Mom's x-rays, CT scans, and MRIs himself. Tomorrow I'll see about getting them to him.
Emily left at noon to get to work by 2:00. I got a haircut at Tony's Barbershop next to Swift's Kitchen on Colfax. Tony was an interesting guy. He's only been there eight months and business is going slowly. I told him that I'd found him only because there was a small sign in Swift's advertising his shop. If not for that, I'd have never seen him. "Therefore," I said, "you need better signage on the street." We walked out after my haircut and I had him look the length of Colfax with me.
"See all the signs?" I asked. "Yours has to compete with all of those. People are driving by quickly. They can't turn their heads each block to see what's there. Face the sign toward traffic and put it high and big. Also, don't call it Tony's. Just write Barber Shop. Make it easy."
He appreciated the advice, and I felt good to think about business for a while instead of hospital stuff.
Finally, I took a great break. Daniel asked me last night if I'd come to his basketball game today. I said I wouldn't dream of missing it. I drove to Estes and watched his game, along with Chris and Kevin. Daniel's team lost, but the score was 39-30, not nearly as bad as the routing I saw when he played football. I watched that game with Mom in September. Daniel's team just left halfway through the third quarter. Started the bus, loaded the team, and drove home. Now that's bad.
The Estes Park A-team won! I couldn't believe it. They played well and won, something I'd long stopped considering a possibility with Estes athletics.
Coming to Estes introduced me to a new layer of sadness around Mom's hospitalization. It's the first time I've been in the mountains here when she was not also around. All of us being up here without her felt hollow. I kept seeing her in that bed I know so well, her mouth open with the drainage tube and, now, sad to report, both feet stabbed with catheter needles and wrapped in tape.
I ended up helping the nurse last night with Mom's right foot, the only remaining untouched real estate on her body. I had to hold her leg down while the nurse searched for a vein. She blew up the first one, then the second. It killed me. I had to look away because Mom tensed her leg and the nurse just kept pulling the needle upward against her skin so I could see its long shape underneath. Finally, she succeeded in tapping a small vein on the side of Mom's foot, and then it gushed blood down the foot onto the white sheet. She got it capped off and hooked up, but Mom's previously virgin foot was now thrice poked and blood-coated. I'm down to the soles of her feet for a place to rub.
Anyway, back in Estes I took a stroll down memory lane. The middle school is roughly as it was when I attended, complete with the "chrono log" stump in the student lobby in front of the office. The students were a lot smaller than I remember us being, and so was the building, for that matter.
After the games, we met Emily at Kind Coffee, where she works, and I took a few minutes to get on their wireless internet connection for the day's stock market report for this weekend's letter. The market rose after the election, despite a Democratic victory and morning predictions of a fall. In my letter's portfolio, one of our recent speculations, Charles & Colvard (CTHR) fell more than 2% for the second day in a row. We're now down 7% and I'm contemplating a safety stop-loss at around -9%. I told Emily, usually the market is fine for us over long stretches of time. Why does it have to act up now? Luckily, I'm pretty good at managing it, so it doesn't interfere with taking care of Mom. Still, it would be nice to just have nothing to worry about.
When I wrapped up after about twenty minutes of work, I took everybody out for dinner at The Rock Inn. What a transformation that place has undergone! I remember it as the dive that it used to be, but it's remodelled and run by three friendly couples serving good food. I think everybody had fun. The boys always lighten the mood. Charlie asked if he could get a cheaper price on a steak! Then, after his meal, he went back in the kitchen to help wash dishes. That kid's always fun.
I was planning to see the boys off to school tomorrow morning and then work in Kind Coffee until noon before driving back down to Denver to be with Mom in the evening. Unfortunately, Emily and I called the ICU from the house and got bad news.
Today, while I was gone, Mom's temperature rose to around 102 and her blood pressure and oxygen dropped. They changed IVs around and put her on a third antibiotic. She's stable now, but it was a setback.
The timing was such that I want to be with Mom as much as possible. It feels to me when I'm in her room that I'm on top of things. Sometimes, they make mistakes that I catch. Before one of her surgeries, a woman came with her blood samples and said that one of them had clotted and that she'd need to draw another to have results ready in time for her operation. The nurse said that the blood would be ready in a few minutes.
"When's the operation?" the lab tech wanted to know so that she'd be sure the results were ready in time.
"7:30," came the reply.
"Actually, it's at 5:30," I pointed out.
"Oh, right," said the nurse. "I was thinking 17:30 and it came out wrong."
An innocent mistake, but it would have been a problem if Mom had shown up in the OR with no current blood profile ready.
That kind of stuff is what I'm talking about. I'm not a doctor, not even a nurse, but I'm alert and I care more about Mom than anybody working there.
So, I feel bad that the one time I stepped out for an afternoon and evening of fun with the family is the one time Mom slid back a few squares on the recovery board.
Therefore, I've cancelled my Kind Coffee plans in the morning. Instead, after the boys are off to school, I'll leave for Denver to catch the doctors on their morning rounds. I should be down there by 8:30 a.m.
Now, I'm at our cozy kitchen table in the mountains. It's my first time here on this trip, despite my having been in Colorado for a week. The house is a giant comfort blanket thrown over my shoulders, but there's a chill left by Mom's absence. This is my home of memories, but every one of them includes her in some way. This house without her in it doesn't work quite right. It's a grand piano with everything but the wires, which is no piano at all. It's just a wooden cabinet with some ivory keys in a neat row. This is a lovely house that sheltered me for much of my life. Without Mom, though, it's no home.
Come home, Mom.
Mom had a mixed day. Emily came early enough to join me for the morning update from doctors on rounds.
I emailed Uncle Pat and Aunts Myra and Terri. Uncle Pat emailed me back quickly and said that he would like to see Mom's x-rays, CT scans, and MRIs himself. Tomorrow I'll see about getting them to him.
Emily left at noon to get to work by 2:00. I got a haircut at Tony's Barbershop next to Swift's Kitchen on Colfax. Tony was an interesting guy. He's only been there eight months and business is going slowly. I told him that I'd found him only because there was a small sign in Swift's advertising his shop. If not for that, I'd have never seen him. "Therefore," I said, "you need better signage on the street." We walked out after my haircut and I had him look the length of Colfax with me.
"See all the signs?" I asked. "Yours has to compete with all of those. People are driving by quickly. They can't turn their heads each block to see what's there. Face the sign toward traffic and put it high and big. Also, don't call it Tony's. Just write Barber Shop. Make it easy."
He appreciated the advice, and I felt good to think about business for a while instead of hospital stuff.
Finally, I took a great break. Daniel asked me last night if I'd come to his basketball game today. I said I wouldn't dream of missing it. I drove to Estes and watched his game, along with Chris and Kevin. Daniel's team lost, but the score was 39-30, not nearly as bad as the routing I saw when he played football. I watched that game with Mom in September. Daniel's team just left halfway through the third quarter. Started the bus, loaded the team, and drove home. Now that's bad.
The Estes Park A-team won! I couldn't believe it. They played well and won, something I'd long stopped considering a possibility with Estes athletics.
Coming to Estes introduced me to a new layer of sadness around Mom's hospitalization. It's the first time I've been in the mountains here when she was not also around. All of us being up here without her felt hollow. I kept seeing her in that bed I know so well, her mouth open with the drainage tube and, now, sad to report, both feet stabbed with catheter needles and wrapped in tape.
I ended up helping the nurse last night with Mom's right foot, the only remaining untouched real estate on her body. I had to hold her leg down while the nurse searched for a vein. She blew up the first one, then the second. It killed me. I had to look away because Mom tensed her leg and the nurse just kept pulling the needle upward against her skin so I could see its long shape underneath. Finally, she succeeded in tapping a small vein on the side of Mom's foot, and then it gushed blood down the foot onto the white sheet. She got it capped off and hooked up, but Mom's previously virgin foot was now thrice poked and blood-coated. I'm down to the soles of her feet for a place to rub.
Anyway, back in Estes I took a stroll down memory lane. The middle school is roughly as it was when I attended, complete with the "chrono log" stump in the student lobby in front of the office. The students were a lot smaller than I remember us being, and so was the building, for that matter.
After the games, we met Emily at Kind Coffee, where she works, and I took a few minutes to get on their wireless internet connection for the day's stock market report for this weekend's letter. The market rose after the election, despite a Democratic victory and morning predictions of a fall. In my letter's portfolio, one of our recent speculations, Charles & Colvard (CTHR) fell more than 2% for the second day in a row. We're now down 7% and I'm contemplating a safety stop-loss at around -9%. I told Emily, usually the market is fine for us over long stretches of time. Why does it have to act up now? Luckily, I'm pretty good at managing it, so it doesn't interfere with taking care of Mom. Still, it would be nice to just have nothing to worry about.
When I wrapped up after about twenty minutes of work, I took everybody out for dinner at The Rock Inn. What a transformation that place has undergone! I remember it as the dive that it used to be, but it's remodelled and run by three friendly couples serving good food. I think everybody had fun. The boys always lighten the mood. Charlie asked if he could get a cheaper price on a steak! Then, after his meal, he went back in the kitchen to help wash dishes. That kid's always fun.
I was planning to see the boys off to school tomorrow morning and then work in Kind Coffee until noon before driving back down to Denver to be with Mom in the evening. Unfortunately, Emily and I called the ICU from the house and got bad news.
Today, while I was gone, Mom's temperature rose to around 102 and her blood pressure and oxygen dropped. They changed IVs around and put her on a third antibiotic. She's stable now, but it was a setback.
The timing was such that I want to be with Mom as much as possible. It feels to me when I'm in her room that I'm on top of things. Sometimes, they make mistakes that I catch. Before one of her surgeries, a woman came with her blood samples and said that one of them had clotted and that she'd need to draw another to have results ready in time for her operation. The nurse said that the blood would be ready in a few minutes.
"When's the operation?" the lab tech wanted to know so that she'd be sure the results were ready in time.
"7:30," came the reply.
"Actually, it's at 5:30," I pointed out.
"Oh, right," said the nurse. "I was thinking 17:30 and it came out wrong."
An innocent mistake, but it would have been a problem if Mom had shown up in the OR with no current blood profile ready.
That kind of stuff is what I'm talking about. I'm not a doctor, not even a nurse, but I'm alert and I care more about Mom than anybody working there.
So, I feel bad that the one time I stepped out for an afternoon and evening of fun with the family is the one time Mom slid back a few squares on the recovery board.
Therefore, I've cancelled my Kind Coffee plans in the morning. Instead, after the boys are off to school, I'll leave for Denver to catch the doctors on their morning rounds. I should be down there by 8:30 a.m.
Now, I'm at our cozy kitchen table in the mountains. It's my first time here on this trip, despite my having been in Colorado for a week. The house is a giant comfort blanket thrown over my shoulders, but there's a chill left by Mom's absence. This is my home of memories, but every one of them includes her in some way. This house without her in it doesn't work quite right. It's a grand piano with everything but the wires, which is no piano at all. It's just a wooden cabinet with some ivory keys in a neat row. This is a lovely house that sheltered me for much of my life. Without Mom, though, it's no home.
Come home, Mom.
Posted by Jason Kelly | 11:03 PM
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