Update On My Sister

I want to thank you all for your well wishes and prayers for my sister. I don’t usually boar you with stuff going on in my life because it is mainly just that – boring. But Mary is a different subject. She is thirteen years older than me and is more of a mother to me than my mother was. She has also been a diabetic for over 50 years and her little body is just getting tired.

She has been through many scary times in the past few years and many have counted her out. The doctors have called the family in just to be told that she has rallied back. She has had an eight bi-pass surgery, many diabetic comas and kidney problems, but she keeps coming back. That little lady is a fighter and I am proud of her and her courage. But she is my sister and she has the Coffey since of humor, too. For example, I notice that her urine bag was missing from its usual place at the foot of her bed. It could have been moved to the other side so I ask her if they had taken the catheter out. She said she didn’t know. So I said, “You didn’t feel or hear a slurping sound and a pop?” She chuckled and looked up at me and said with her little weak voice, “No! I guess its dead. I miss all the good things lying here.”

We almost lost her though. She woke up during the night, want to potty and climed out of the bed without calling a nurse. There was a portable potty next to her bed, and she was sitting on it. She strained so hard that her blood pressure dropped and she passed out. The only reason her heart didn’t stop was that she has a defibrillator implanted in her chest and that kept the heart going. The medical staff had to do cpr by beating her chest to get the heart stared on its own. She is bruised to high heaven, and she spent a couple of days in ICU. They had to have her lungs pumped out to get rid of the goop, but, again, she fooled the doctors. I told her that, after all she had been though in her life, to be taken out by a Chinese disease was just not fair. She wanted to know what Chinese disease and I told her she had a mild heart attack brought on by a Chinese malady called Hung Turd. She tried to hit me, but she couldn’t lift her arms. She is a fighter, ya know.

Yesterday they were going to move her to an intensive therapy unit in downtown Atlanta, but the rep from the unit came buy to evaluate her and said she wouldn’t qualify because she is doing so much better. She is on less oxygen and is doing great with her walking and stuff, so she will be moved to a medium therapy unit closer to her home, and I believe she will be able to go home soon.

I just hope that when and if it happens to me, I can face the challenge with as much courage and determination as Mary. She continues to amaze us and we still find things to laugh about.