Heat Wave? What Heat Wave?

This is fun! I could get used to this. Grandma, will you bring us back here?

And I did!

Indian Lake

Looking good grandma!

Indian Lake

This was a difficult day for me. Just the day before my daughter, who'd just been discharged from the hospital two days previously, passed a blood clot to her R lung. She was back in the hospital and going through horror upon horrors. But it was decided by her that since I'd promised the Q and Clara to take them to the beach and that we were still going to the beach.

And so we did.

Missi said she had such fond memories of 'the beach' when she was a kid and wanted me to make the memories for them too. And so I did. They had a great day and just loved it and asked me to bring them back.

And I did.

We had fun grandma!

Cooling Off

Do they look like there's an oppresive heat wave going on? Nope! They're having too much fun!

After Six Weeks in the Hospital

And after almost 75 pounds of water taken off her with lasix here she is now. For some funny reason the remaining water is in her belly area and she has a small pooch.

Aren't we lucky though? Cooper, the baby, is perfect. Missi fell apart during her pregnancy and struggled with an undiagnosed heart condition that almost did her in, but the baby was PERFECT! And what a good baby she is!

Now if we could just get over having to feed the poor thing formula. Having breast fed all my babies and Missi doing the same with hers, using formula is new to us. I never saw so much gas. Poor thing would be sleeping soundly and start writhing and crying and then pass gas or a burp. Yucky stuff! But then look at her. She looks like she's thriving well.

Happy birthday Cooper! You're two months old today!

Her Obese Self

And she does look obese here doesn't she? Funny when one of the doctors spoke about her 'obesity problem' when she was in the hospital. This woman is a tall drink of water. 5'10" tall and 135 pounds dripping wet normally. Her skin was so shiny from all the water I thought it would split wide open. What you can't see here are her thin arms. They didn't get filled with water. They stayed thin. And that's what one of the other doctors pointed out to the doctor speaking about obesity. He said, did you see her wrists? She's not an obese person.

Fat EDEMATOUS foot!

This is Missi's foot after the baby was born. She wouldn't start losing the water. Why, she kept telling me it felt as though she was gaining MORE fluid. Yet she wouldn't go to the emergency room. After a couple of days I finally convinced her to call her doctor, giving her a list of what to say when she spoke to someone there. She was immediately given an appt. for a couple of hours later. And from there we were directed to the emergency room. And within a couple of hours a couple of E.R. docs had my daughter properly diagnosed with a heart condition. HEART CONDITIONS??? Weeks later we found out that two of her four heart chambers weren't even moving while in the E.R. Cardiac tamponade comes to my mind at this. Unbelieveable.

Ms. Cooper Dahlia Celeste McConnell

Here is my newest granddaughter. From her 6th day of life I took care of her as though she was mine. And that is including all the getting up in the middle of the night when she wanted to eat, bathes, etc. What a precious gift to take care of an infant baby like that.

And she kept me sane during an insane time.

Missi is now able to care for her AND I AM HOME. She is doing much, much better. Hooray! And I am back to sleeping in my own bed. Another HOORAY!!!

A Wild Ride for a Mitral Valve

I'm sorry I've been gone so long, but you'll never believe what has been happening. My daughter, Melissa, was due to give birth to a little girl June 15th. I'd taken the month of June off to help the last few weeks of pregnancy and the first few weeks after the birth. And the baby was born without a hitch on June 1st. I was in Georgia. Little did we know at the time just how lucky we were.

Melissa was discharged from the hospital a couple of days later and was not looking good. I kept looking at her and wanting to take her to the ER. She'd have none of it. The 2nd day I said, listen, your husband is at work, the kids are sleeping, the lights are low and your heart rate is 132. Something is wrong. Tomorrow you will call the doctor's office and this is what you say, and I gave her a long list of horrid symptoms from constant headaches, shortness of breath, water retention worsening, upper gastric pain, etc., and they had her an appointment in two hours. They sent her right to the ER.

There she was registered and instead of being sent to the crowded waiting room, was taken right into a room. I listened to two doctors converse between themselves about the many possibilities that could be going on with my daughter and then with shock heard the ER doc tell the clerk to put Melissa in front of the trauma coming in regarding her CT scan. Without a doubt I knew this to be a bad, bad thing. Now to wait for a diagnosis with trepidation in my heart.

And diagnosed it was. Her heart!!! HER HEART!!! HER HEART!!! That was June 6th and she was admitted to the Richard M. Ross Heart Hospital at OSU where she spent 9 nine days getting stabilized and was sent home with five prescriptions and an appt. with a cardiac surgeon for July 19th.

The next day she threw a p.e., as in pulmonary embolism. She was spitting up bright red blood. And she hasn't been the same since. June 27th she had a mitral valve replacement. July 1st she was told she'd be going home in a couple of days. And July 2nd she was moved off the surgical floor and onto a medical floor.

July 4th I received a phone call from her doctor saying that my daughter wanted him to call me and give me an update. Yes, would you please tell me why my daughter was moved to the medical floor? I was told, her mitral valve replacement surgery was successful, however, it was unknown the extent of the damage to the heart. Specifically the right side of the heart. I asked if she was going to have to go on a transplant list and the answer was no. They just needed some time to get her stabilized and taken off IV medications and given oral medications.

And my daughter is just a shadow of what she was a year ago. She barely eats, she's so weak she can't shower herself and is constantly sleeping.

And I'm sorry, but should I be angry at the OB doctors? How can it be that they missed this diagnosis? How different would things be if they had in fact caught this condition? Where is this all going to end?

If you would please take a moment to say a prayer for Melissa. Thank you.

And I almost forgot, with all this going on, the baby is perfect. Healthy and getting larger and larger day to day. And Melissa can't pick her up for 6 weeks. And she believes I'm her momma as I'm the one taking care of this little sugar dumpling.

Little did I know as I headed north just what I was heading into.