Moving forward

As we continue with the baby steps this weekend I witnessed while with Deb such huge progress from scrapbooking in January to Scrapbooking in February. They were a month apart and during the January crop she couldn't stay focused, was constantly moving about, or trying to, kept asking where the boys and Gordon were, obsessed with the thought that she lost her phone and more...

While I know she's not ready to scrapbook pictures, she still LOVES to craft. I planned ahead and got a Valentine card kit from Trish. She began to work, even while I was still visiting with others, and was immersed in creating as I watched with awe...

Many people commented to me the amazing changes they had seen in Deb since the last crop, the ones that I too was witnessing myself. It was then that I felt a little bit of hope rise up in me. She is getting better... its slow, sometimes unnoticeable, but there, right in front of me was proof!

After 4 1/2 hours she was cleaning up and ready to go. As you know Deb is always planning and always on the go. She thought Gordon wanted her home and there is no changing directions when she is sure on something, so I drove her home.

We had a great talk on the way too and from the crop. She talked mostly of the upcoming radiation treatments that start on Monday. She said she's had dreams that a doctor told her it was cancer and I assured her that they were just dreams.

She asked about my brother Joe, when he died and if she was there, she wanted to understand, see if it would bring up any memories. I explained what happened to Joe in perfect detail. Because when you lose your brother, you remember every detail of that day. I told her she was there with him for 3 weeks while he was in ICU, and on the day of surgery once we got the update that he was under anesthesia and prepped for surgery she and I went down the hall to grab a coffee and get ready for the long wait.

Coming down the hall to the waiting room we could hear our mother crying and our stomach's sank.  What? What happened? We learned that when the surgeon scrapped away the scar tissue from the aneurysm he couldn't stop the bleeding and Joe was brain dead. I cried telling Deb and again while trying to type this...

Just like that, the time it takes to get a cup of coffee your life can change!

We got to see Joe after they stopped the bleeding and wrapped his head to cover the ugly mess they had made. He didn't look like Joe, so swollen from the trauma of the surgeons error. He was only 37, his heart and body still strong, but without your brain those other things don't matter...