I know it's been a while

It's been a very busy week.

First with Gerri things are not going well. I am very glad not to be the person responsible for making the decisions here. Since my last post they have extubated, intubated, and then put in a permanent (although it will close if it ever gets to the point that she no longer needs it) trach. She has been evicted from Henry Ford Hospital as it is not a long term care hospital (she was there 28 days) and moved to a long term facility in the old Outer Drive Hospital. As a long term facility she can stay there up to 25 days, although their "program" is only 21 days. If the decision is made to continue treating her she will need to be moved to one of the five nursing facilities in the state of Michigan that can handle her needs. I know all too well the pain of losing someone suddenly and the pain of watching someone die slowly, however this crap of making decisions along the way really sucks. Every place in her body that can have a tube coming out of it does, and they have created additional holes for extra tubing. She is awake, alert, and responsive, but unable to talk or write or communicate in any way that is effective. She is noticeably uncomfortable and restrained so that she can not pull any of her many tubes out. Everything is functioning normally except her lungs (and today her digestive system since they had the feeding tube set at Gordon instead of Gerri) and there is no clear cut answer on whether or not her lungs will ever again function at a life sustaining level. As frustrating as it is to visit and see her so miserable and unable to communicate whatever it is that she is so frantically trying to say, I realize it is a thousand time harder for her than it is for me and the alternative to visiting is to leave her there alone. So I will continue to go see her whenever I can 2 or 3 times a week and Gordon will be going back downstate in a couple of weeks when he can get around again (more later on that). Tonia is pretty set on moving Gerri into one of the nursing facilities, in the hopes that her lungs will improve and she will be able to come home but that decision is a couple of weeks away and the way things have been going anything could happen.

Gordon had ankle surgery yesterday afternoon and although it was supposed to be an overnight in the hospital he is still there. Hopefully he will be coming home tomorrow since he does not have a feeding tube and is receiving normal hospital rations. He had the surgery in Bay City and Megan and I stopped on our way up yesterday evening and brought him some snacks to get him through the night. When we found out he was spending another day Bryan and I drove down this afternoon with more snacks and a couple of 7-11 hotdogs. His foot is in a metal contraption that looks very similar to the brace thing that Chris Reeve wore on his head. He will need to wear the brace for 3 months (I think, it might be 6) and use crutches or a walker for a year, on the up side he gets a handicrapper placard for the car.

Megan is home safe and sound. Her flight was delayed and as it was the last flight into DTW for the evening and nobody was in the terminal her flight was naturally delegated to the very last gate in the Metro Detroit Area. All of the ticket counters were closed when I got to the airport and I had no idea of where to go to get the gate pass to pick her up. I finally found someone who could direct me to the Northwest office in baggage claim. Apparently Northwest was suffering from computer issues and they were not able to print me out a gate pass, I said fine just bring her here to baggage claim. But no this was not an option I had to pick her up at the gate, after much ado someone wrote me up a pass to take through security. Security was of course closed since no one was leaving on a flight for several hours. I finally found someone who was able to call security and they opened up for me. As I was disturbing their break time I was given the special treatment that included testing swabs of the inside of my purse and a thorough pat down. I retreated to the ends of the earth with my book to await her plane. I was joined later by a woman in her 60's meeting her sister (also in her 60"s) I'm not quite sure how that qualified for a gate pass but oh well. Megan of course was the last one off the plane with her escort. Of course the computer system was still down and they could not verify that I was actually supposed to pick her up, but alas they gave her to me anyway. One of her suitcases was missing and knowing where the Northwest office came in handy as we put in a claim for the lost luggage. By this point it was after 2:00 am and I was very tired. They had to verify that indeed all of the luggage was off the plane and then one woman kept bringing in bags off the conveyor saying is this it? I thought I handled it all very calmly but my face must have showed my frustration as the other woman behind the counter said "Ma'am we're all tired", I just asked her if she had been at work at 8:30 that morning and if she had to be back there again in a few hours. She finally figured out how to put in Mommy's address as a temporary address in case the luggage was found before Friday and sent us on our merry way. At 11:00 the following night we got a call from the luggage company saying the bag had been located and that they were going to be in our area "this evening" could they drop it off then. I was a little confused as to what time frame "this evening" constitutes at 11:00 pm, but said sure and they showed up a 4:00 am (Megan was still up so she took care of it.)

My computer died earlier this week booting to a screen that just said www.dell.com, there was no options, no place to exit for set ups nothing. I called a computer place in Bay City (near the hospital) and brought it in on my way to see Gordon. I called them while I was with Gordon and they told me it was spyware that had crashed it and that they were deleting the spyware and loading a anti-virus software. On my way out of town I watched it boot at the repair shop and paid them their $60. Got home fed the kids and hooked everything up only to get to the dell.com screen. I eliminated plugs one by one and when I unplugged my USB hub the computer booted just fine. I could then plug in the USB hub but the trackball connected to it did not work. So I unplugged the trackball plugged in the old yucky mouse and have not had a problem with it. I hate the mouse and will look for a PS2 port trackball.

I think that's everything and my poker is just about done taping. And if Will makes it into the jury house I will quit watching the show.