missmel3315
Active Member
Hey to everyone who still remembers me. I know it has been a long time, but fortunately Janet has been keeping y'all posted about all that is going on in the insanity that is known as my life. For those who aren't up to speed I will try to bring you up to the goings on without trying to be so long winded.
I will go back to November of last year when Cliff and I separated due to the fact that the kids were at eachothers throats and succeeded at putting a wedge between us and we always agreed before we married that if we were forced to choose between the kids and our marriage the kids would win and we would divorce. It was ugly for a while and as many of you know Cliff had a nervous break down. Fast forward to March we both had time to calm down and realize that things were no better and we infact wanted to be back together and began trying to put our lives back together. The kids were furious but we were going to try anyway. things were going well as far as our relationship was concerned and we had started working on bringing the kids around when on Easter Sunday I had a terrible roll over accident in my SUV in which I broke my neck in three places. They weren't sure if I would walk again but fortunately I did. Cliff was so good to me and was adamant (SP) that if I was paralyzed that he and the girls would move back in immediately. Just as I was finishing up my rehabilitation/therapy I had to have abdominal surgery due to my adhesions and endometriosis. That was May 18. Then on May 25th Cliff and I were celebrating our my oldest sons HS grad with family and around midnight he went to his apartment. Ten mins later his oldest daughter called me to say he had fallen in the bathroom and she believed he had had a stroke but cliff refused to go with the paramedics. I ran over there and made him go. He indeed had had a stroke so massive that it started in the mid brain and blew out the entire right hemisphere of his brain. We tried clot busters and he seemed to be doing ok. But by Wed of that week he was only responding to my commands and by friday and sat he was no longer responsive. I had been begging his docs to do another CT but they refused. Finally on Sat the on call doctor agreed he was worsening and did a CT to find that his brain was swelling so badly it had shifted almost all the way to the right side of his head. While we were waiting to go to ICU and try to control his swelling with medications I noted his heart beginning to become irregular and his breathing was sounding like ppl do as they are dying. They rushed him to surgery to do an immediate crainotomy with a lobectomy (removal of skull and brain matter) The surgeon confirmed that he was minutes from death. He fortunatly survived but a week later he developed a 104 degree fever for over 12 hours. I begged them to find out what was going on and as they piddled around he got worse. They finally did a spinal tap to find he indeed has spinal meningitis. Again they thought he was going to die. During this time I was still healing from my surgery and due to being with him 24/7 I contracted a staff infection and had to have emergency surgery and be put on a wound vac. I spent a week in the hospital. Cliff was hanging in there but was losing weight and unable to handle therapy to his body. They kept telling me that the meningitis could kill him. The day i was discharged from the hospital I went to go see him and while they told me his head would go flat on the surgical side i was shocked to see how bad he looked. I lost it. After four weeks of inpatient iv antibiotics he was well enough to go to a long term acute care hospital. He was now completely paralyzed on the left side of his body. During this time I developed another infection in my abdomen and had to be rehospitalized. the only thing that kept me going was the birth of our first grandchild a boy named Ashton Drew. He spent a month at Kindred LTAC. and then was actually well enough to be transferred to a rehab facility. He was able to now sit but still couldnt walk or use his hand. His cognition was also very much affected. We transferred him to a facility called TIRR (the institute for rehabilitation and research) It was there that he started really getting better fast. He worked up to a reg diet from a pureed one. He learned how to dress himself shower, speak again, and took his first steps. It has been difficult but after a month we are finally home. He is still in a wheelchair but can walk 75 feet with assistance. He can now move his left leg although it is very weak and the muscles have wasted greatly. He also has movement in his shoulder and upper arm and they feel he will get more feeling and movement back in the lower arm and hand. He still has left hemi neglect and has to work hard at reading things esp on the left side and has some permanent vision loss to the left eye. The surgeon who did his crainotomy stored the skull cap in his abdomen to be replaced sometime in Sept or Oct. I unfortunately have developed another infection in my abdomen but can't do anything about it right now except to take antibiotics. I am the only one who can take care of him right now so there is no other option. But with all that Cliff has been thru my issues seem so small. He continues to amaze me every day. And we finally realized how much we want to be together.
On a brighter note my oldest son is graduating from Boot Camp in the Army, and we absoultely have fallen in love with Ashton. My oldest daughter has moved back to help as much as she can. The down side was that Cliff and I decided that it would be best if his daughters and my youngest difficult child would live for the next year with their bio-mom and difficult child's dad. The girls are in Houston and difficult child is in Ohio. Bio-mom has taken advantage of this and is really sticking it to Cliff. It makes me want to just knock the snot out of her.
Well so much for being conscise LOL. Thanks to all who took the time to read the whole post. Also thanks to Dammit Janet for posting and keeping everyone updated. I am eternally gratefull. Also thanks to everyone who prayed, held good thought and wishes, and lit candles for us. Keep em comming as I don't think Cliff would be as well as he is without them.
HUGS to all!!
I will go back to November of last year when Cliff and I separated due to the fact that the kids were at eachothers throats and succeeded at putting a wedge between us and we always agreed before we married that if we were forced to choose between the kids and our marriage the kids would win and we would divorce. It was ugly for a while and as many of you know Cliff had a nervous break down. Fast forward to March we both had time to calm down and realize that things were no better and we infact wanted to be back together and began trying to put our lives back together. The kids were furious but we were going to try anyway. things were going well as far as our relationship was concerned and we had started working on bringing the kids around when on Easter Sunday I had a terrible roll over accident in my SUV in which I broke my neck in three places. They weren't sure if I would walk again but fortunately I did. Cliff was so good to me and was adamant (SP) that if I was paralyzed that he and the girls would move back in immediately. Just as I was finishing up my rehabilitation/therapy I had to have abdominal surgery due to my adhesions and endometriosis. That was May 18. Then on May 25th Cliff and I were celebrating our my oldest sons HS grad with family and around midnight he went to his apartment. Ten mins later his oldest daughter called me to say he had fallen in the bathroom and she believed he had had a stroke but cliff refused to go with the paramedics. I ran over there and made him go. He indeed had had a stroke so massive that it started in the mid brain and blew out the entire right hemisphere of his brain. We tried clot busters and he seemed to be doing ok. But by Wed of that week he was only responding to my commands and by friday and sat he was no longer responsive. I had been begging his docs to do another CT but they refused. Finally on Sat the on call doctor agreed he was worsening and did a CT to find that his brain was swelling so badly it had shifted almost all the way to the right side of his head. While we were waiting to go to ICU and try to control his swelling with medications I noted his heart beginning to become irregular and his breathing was sounding like ppl do as they are dying. They rushed him to surgery to do an immediate crainotomy with a lobectomy (removal of skull and brain matter) The surgeon confirmed that he was minutes from death. He fortunatly survived but a week later he developed a 104 degree fever for over 12 hours. I begged them to find out what was going on and as they piddled around he got worse. They finally did a spinal tap to find he indeed has spinal meningitis. Again they thought he was going to die. During this time I was still healing from my surgery and due to being with him 24/7 I contracted a staff infection and had to have emergency surgery and be put on a wound vac. I spent a week in the hospital. Cliff was hanging in there but was losing weight and unable to handle therapy to his body. They kept telling me that the meningitis could kill him. The day i was discharged from the hospital I went to go see him and while they told me his head would go flat on the surgical side i was shocked to see how bad he looked. I lost it. After four weeks of inpatient iv antibiotics he was well enough to go to a long term acute care hospital. He was now completely paralyzed on the left side of his body. During this time I developed another infection in my abdomen and had to be rehospitalized. the only thing that kept me going was the birth of our first grandchild a boy named Ashton Drew. He spent a month at Kindred LTAC. and then was actually well enough to be transferred to a rehab facility. He was able to now sit but still couldnt walk or use his hand. His cognition was also very much affected. We transferred him to a facility called TIRR (the institute for rehabilitation and research) It was there that he started really getting better fast. He worked up to a reg diet from a pureed one. He learned how to dress himself shower, speak again, and took his first steps. It has been difficult but after a month we are finally home. He is still in a wheelchair but can walk 75 feet with assistance. He can now move his left leg although it is very weak and the muscles have wasted greatly. He also has movement in his shoulder and upper arm and they feel he will get more feeling and movement back in the lower arm and hand. He still has left hemi neglect and has to work hard at reading things esp on the left side and has some permanent vision loss to the left eye. The surgeon who did his crainotomy stored the skull cap in his abdomen to be replaced sometime in Sept or Oct. I unfortunately have developed another infection in my abdomen but can't do anything about it right now except to take antibiotics. I am the only one who can take care of him right now so there is no other option. But with all that Cliff has been thru my issues seem so small. He continues to amaze me every day. And we finally realized how much we want to be together.
On a brighter note my oldest son is graduating from Boot Camp in the Army, and we absoultely have fallen in love with Ashton. My oldest daughter has moved back to help as much as she can. The down side was that Cliff and I decided that it would be best if his daughters and my youngest difficult child would live for the next year with their bio-mom and difficult child's dad. The girls are in Houston and difficult child is in Ohio. Bio-mom has taken advantage of this and is really sticking it to Cliff. It makes me want to just knock the snot out of her.
Well so much for being conscise LOL. Thanks to all who took the time to read the whole post. Also thanks to Dammit Janet for posting and keeping everyone updated. I am eternally gratefull. Also thanks to everyone who prayed, held good thought and wishes, and lit candles for us. Keep em comming as I don't think Cliff would be as well as he is without them.
HUGS to all!!
every bit of negative energy out of her. I don't know what she plans to accomplish by acting that way in this situation. The least she could do is give it a rest.
