Bouncing Back

Craig's mom was scheduled for carotid surgery last Friday so the family all came down Thursday night to be closer to the hospital for the 5 a.m. admission! Miriam had a blockage in her carotid artery and I had referred her to a vascular surgeon I trusted here in Milwaukee. She was in ICU by 9 and everything had gone pretty much as planned. The kids were excited to finally see mom's hospital, since they had already seen Grandma Linda's hospital when Baby Benson was born.

Miriam was awake and talking and recovering great. I took the kids home to nap and everyone else headed back to the hospital. She had a little episode where she started to cough and her blood pressure went up. Craig and his sister came home for dinner, let their mom rest and Craig's dad was planning to stay just a while longer. Craig got a call that they were taking Miriam back to surgery because her neck was much more swollen and they wanted to check things out. The coughing and high blood pressure were not a good combination on a fresh neck surgical site so the surgeon cleaned things up and she was brought back to her room.

Now Grandma Miriam is home and recovering like a champ! The kids did so well with all of our extra visits to the hospital and were even given crayons by the ICU nurses to draw pictures for grandma. Even thought it wasn't the ideal scenario, we enjoyed seeing grandma every day and having grandpa stay at the house.

In the waiting room - the tablet was a life saver to keep Drew occupied.

This is what you do when you have to go back to the hospital when it's almost bedtime.

They were pretty much convinced someone knew they were coming and purposely
put this kid-sized table in the waiting room for THEM!

The kids are adverse to coming in our bed. And those mornings when they are up
just a smidge too early, I always wished they would crawl into our bed with us until we are
ready to get up. Well, it was late after we came home from the hospital and to get them to wind them
down, I put a favorite cartoon on in our bedroom. They snuggled in and we moved them to their beds
 a short time later. Except now they are asking to watch that cartoon in our bed every night :/whoops!