Tuesday night I walked into Mia’s hospital room around 7pm. She turned her head, saw me, and said “Oh my god. Get me a lawyer. Call Dan Newlin.”

That’s right. Mia is officially asking for a lawyer and wants to sue every doctor she’s seen and who saw Daddy.

Which means that all is right with the world and everything is going to be okay. The last two months were one big false alarm. This woman is clearly back to old self and will be fine.

Yeah, nothin’ to see here folks. Move along.

But for the sake of documentation, let’s catch-up since my last post about Mia’s health….

Her lungs and brain got better but her stomach, not so much:
The day we were supposed to be letting Mia go was the day we told her about Daddy and hanging out with her. It was April 11th and she was awake and alert, but still couldn’t speak.

She was mouthing phrases like ‘I have to go the bathroom,’ and ‘help me.’ And she was in a LOT of pain.

The stomach issues that caused Kindred to send her back to Holmes were worse. And by “worse” I mean she was hemorrhaging blood from her stomach at an alarming rate. And it was hurting her like hell.

Basically, her colon quit. Stomach issues (like Chrones) that she’d been managing for years with medication were suddenly at the forefront. And they were completely unrelated to the Flu or her breathing issues.

After days of getting 2 to 4 units of blood, her blood pressure being impossible to manage due to pain medication and rapid blood loss, and her stomach in horrific pain, we were advised to do exploratory surgery.

It was exploratory because GI couldn’t scope her due to the delicate state of her stomach. So surgery went in blind.

They ended up taking the entire right side of her colon in a hemicolectomy and having a piece of her small intestine brought outside for an ileostomy.

And now that we got a damaged half of her large intestine out of the way:
Things started to get better quick. Like, REAL quick.

Sure she has like, 20 staples up the middle of her stomach. And sure she now has a colostomy bag. But blood pressure, oxygen rate, heartrate, EVERYTHING started going in the right direction.

So she got transferred back to Kindred. (That’s the 3rd time, for those of you counting at home)

I went to see her last Friday night after work, walked in, and she SPOKE to me. Like, FOR REAL. WITH A VOICE. She was a little whacky, and some of the things she said were kinda weird, but her sentences were complete and complex.

But then her stomach started bleeding and she got sent back to Holmes.

Queue the request for a lawyer:
When I saw her at Holmes the following Tuesday, she was PISSED. And she was REALLY talking. She had so many questions – about Daddy, the puppies, her house, Corey, Cari, everyone. I told her as much as I could and spent hours massaging her to try to get her swelling down.

We had a really great night – laughing, picking on nurses, talking about everyone and everything. She was sharp as a tack and it was a blast.

The next morning she was disoriented, scared, and very frustrated. She asked me “what do I do?” and I said “Move. Move as much as possible because the sooner you get moving, the sooner you get home.”

Annnnnd back to Kindred:
After getting cleared, again, by Holmes, Mia was sent back to Kindred (4th time’s the charm? God we hope so). The situation is basically like this:

• If she were 100% healthy and simply recovering from a hemicolectomy, she would be going home.
• If she were 100% healthy and simply recovering from the trach and lingering lung weakness, she would be going to Kindred for a short time and heading home soon.
• But because her muscles have atrophied from nearly 9 weeks in bed, she has to go to Kindred and to rehab for a long, long time. Home is not in the immediate future. We’re not sure if it will ever be in her future.

That was last night, and she was so upset. She was convinced Kindred was trying to kill her and a ‘dangerous’ place. But I can’t say I’ve seen anything to support that. I mean, I’ve met and spoke with THREE of her doctors there on a freakin’ Saturday. At Holmes and Cape Canaveral, I was lucky if I ever saw one, let alone got more than 2 seconds of his/her time.

I figured when I walked in tonight she would be pissed, and I was kind of glad she couldn’t move because I figured she would be throwing things at me when I walked in for having her sent back to Kindred.

But nope. 
Nope nope nope.

We had another great night. We talked, we laughed, we flipped through memories. She’s having a hard time understanding time and how long she’s been out, how long since Daddy died, and how much has happened to her. (At this point I am too and I’m not the one who’s been drugged and worked on for two months).

But otherwise… she’s not only is alert and responsive, she’s not only verbalizing complete and complex thoughts, she even SOUNDS like herself now.

And she got started in Physical Therapy today, which looks promising. She’s responding the right way – her brain is telling the right muscles to move… her muscles have just atrophied so much that it’s going to be a lot of work to recover them.

As for me:
The last week has been tough but much, much better. The dogs are boarded so I’m really just navigating my schedule to be here for Mia four days a week but still only spend two nights away from home.

Otherwise, I pretty much can’t wait to get back to her tomorrow, and the next day. And Tuesday night. And Wednesday morning. Because when we’re together I feel like everything is going to be okay.