So... Where Was I?

Sometimes life just happens and you have no choice but to roll with it. My last post was 2 weeks ago (March 31) and my grandmother was undergoing a heart catheterization at the time to further evaluate her congestive heart failure and narrow down the treatment options; they discovered an artery that was 85% blocked and needed a stent. On April 3 she had an endoscopy to check for signs of internal bleeding that could raise her risk level if she were to have the stent placed (therefore requiring blood thinner). Within a couple hours of the endoscopy, she was taken by ambulance to the local hospital in acute respiratory distress; she was intubated and then transported by ambulance (they wanted to airlift but weather was bad) to another hospital in a larger city where her cardiologist's team resides. I left work around 3 pm, drove home, picked up a suitcase that Paul had packed for me, and drove 3 hours south to meet my uncles at the hospital. My mom is Grandma's medical power of attorney, but she lives several states away and couldn't get a flight out until the next morning and she needed me to be there to update her and help facilitate Grandma's care. I spent all night in the hospital with my uncles and Grandma. It was one of the worst nights of my life. She was unable to be sedated while intubated because the sedatives made her blood pressure drop too low, so all night long we watched her thrash and gag and fight the tube down her throat.

By the time my mom arrived on the 4th, they had taken the tube out and Grandma was breathing on her own but still in the ICU. She had pneumonia, her blood sugar from her diabetes was extremely high, her kidneys were struggling, and we learned she had had a small heart attack which was most likely the cause of her respiratory distress the previous day. I spent the remainder of that weekend at the hospital with my family (we did eventually get rooms at a nearby hotel that offered discounts to hospital visitors). It was a long, physically and emotionally exhausting weekend. I needed to be there with Grandma and to help my mom and her brothers with all the paperwork and decisions, but I missed my husband and my son (thankfully my in-laws were able to step in and help with Nathan while Paul was on shift that Saturday). There were many conversations about death, dying, and end-of-life care. I work in the field of oncology - this is nothing new to me. But this is really the first time that I was intimately involved in discussing, explaining, and ultimately documenting someone's wishes and advance directives.

I returned home on April 6 (after a semi-disastrous experience trying to implement Grandma's DNR orders and advance directives - thanks to unfortunate timing and a very upsetting, highly inappropriate interference from a medical resident who handled it quite poorly). Grandma remained in the hospital and my mom stayed nearby (with help from her brothers) for all of last week while they continued to evaluate and stabilize her condition. Last Friday (April 11), Grandma underwent a procedure to place a stent in the artery that was blocked; at the same time, they were able to complete a sort of temporary repair to one of her heart valves that is causing the trouble. Friday afternoon, Paul, Nathan, and I drove back down to the hotel by the hospital and spent the weekend there. We returned home yesterday evening, and Grandma was also discharged and sent home. This is not the end of the road, there will be more to this story. Likewise I have so many thoughts and feelings about all the events that have transpired over the past 2 weeks, but I'm not even sure where to begin. For now I think I will let it all just simmer...

I set new mini-goals on March 12, and it's time to check-in on my progress (or lack thereof). It has been a difficult 30+ days. Shortly after I wrote about these goals, all 3 of us got very sick. My mom came to visit just as we were recovering; having her around was very helpful, but it did change up our routine a bit. Then, less than a week after she left, all the drama with Grandma began. Where does this leave me? In need of a re-set button - ha!

1. Fitness. I was supposed to workout at least 5 days per week, including at least 1 run per week. I definitely did not meet this goal. I worked out zero days while sick, then squeezed in 1 run and 1 long hike while mom was here. I may have averaged 2 or 3 workouts per week the rest of the time, but all the traveling and hospital time definitely did NOT help. There were no other training runs either :( So... mini-goal for the next 30 days? Same as before. I really need to keep this up and make it a priority. The number on the scale hasn't budged much lately, but I can tell a difference from February in terms of strength and endurance, as well as how my clothes fit. I definitely don't want to backslide!
2. Healthy eating. Another fail :( My appetite in general has been horrible ever since I got sick. And all the stress has only made it worse. When I do eat it's because I know I need to, but junky stuff is all that appeals to me unfortunately (ice cream! CHIPS!). I was supposed to be planning meals, shopping ahead, and tracking my calories in MFP. Being sick screwed up planning and shopping for the first half of the month; then once I did plan and shop ahead for the second half, I ended up being gone for a large chunk of it! I also pretty much gave up tracking calories while at the hospital. We were either eating high-calorie restaurant food (whatever was nearby and convenient) or crappy cafeteria food, and always at weird hours of the day/night. If there's anything positive to say about this mini-goal, it's that I can definitely tell a difference in how I feel by NOT achieving it: I feel like CRAP. I'm sluggish and tired and my whole GI system is whacky. I need to get this under control again. Mini-goal going forward: 1) resume meal-planning and preparation, 2) resume tracking calories in MFP, and 3) figure out some kind of detox to do for the next week or so to get my system straightened out! 
3. Education. I'm not even going to get into detail about this. The story is the same as with all my other goals: sickness + family crisis + unplanned travel = ZERO achievement. Going forward: I must spend at least 2-3 hours per week on my capstone/thesis. No if's, and's, or but's about it!
4. Organization. I had aimed to spend 1-2 hours per week on organization and special projects, and I have to say, this is the one mini-goal I might have actually achieved (or come close to anyway). I wrote about my closet/wardrobe project in another post, and I'm still very happy with that progress (although my "donate" pile is still taking up space in the corner of our bedroom, so that needs to be gone). I did not get to work on my photo projects at all, so I'm going to keep that as a goal for the next 30 days. I think I will also set a mini-goal to tackle the "office" room and do some serious sorting and purging in there 
5. Finances. So I set goals to 1) eat out a maximum of 3 times (FAIL), 2) set aside cash for weekly expenses to help with budgeting (tried to do this for Paul's meals on shift and gas money... and then FAILED when the hospital visits interfered), and 3) reconfigure how our paychecks are split for direct deposit into various accounts (never even tried to do this so... FAIL). I think I will keep this simple: for the next 30 days, my goal is to work with Paul on pricing out various aspects of our upcoming home renovation so we can get a more precise estimate from our contractor and hopefully get the ball rolling on our construction loan! I really should do a separate post about all of this anyway, so stay tuned!

The moral of the story here is that sometimes you set goals, and sometimes, despite your best efforts or intentions, you wind up getting derailed anyway. I'm not even that disappointed in myself. Do I want to do better? Yes. Will I pick up and try again over the next 30 days? Definitely.