Weekly Update {Ohio Edition - Part 1}

WARNING: this blog is a tad long and gets pretty emotional for me.

The twins worked on their sharing skills:

Since the twins are way more mobile these days (rolling, scooting, army crawling...just everywhere) and getting into everything in the living room, I decided to move all of the toys into the playroom. I rearranged some things and organized the toys so the twins would have more room to crawl around:

I got a lot accomplished and even managed to make homemade organic green beans and broccoli for the babes:

While the girls napped, Wes decided to sit up on his own and practice getting up on all fours:

(06-30-14)

Ev didn't like that her little brother had one up on her so when she woke up she sat up on her own, too:

July 1st was officially the day that Ed became a Journeyman for the Local 88 Sheet Metal Union and to celebrate we got cupcakes and ice cream chocolate chip cookie sandwiches from Freed's Bakery:

(Congrats babe!! I am beyond proud of you!! Love you!!)

The kids were so excited when Daddy got home from work because he's the funnest guy EVER, duh:

Tenley woke up super early Wednesday morning and insisted that I paint her nails "boo" for the 4th of July:

Since the kids were up so early I called Linds to see what they were up to because we were so bored. They also had an early start to their day so we headed over to their house for what I thought would be another typical fun playdate. I had my phone on silent (as always) and while packing up my stuff to leave I noticed that I had a missed call from my brother, Ray, and also two text messages from him. My brother should've been at work so I immediately began to think of all the possibilities of what was wrong and my heart began to sink further and further into my stomach. As I frantically opened my text messages..."Call me now." "Please." I instantly handed all the kids over to Lindsay and went into the living room to call him back. When he answered his voice was shaky and broken and he said, "Kel, mom's really sick." Then I thought "ok, mom's sick. We just Tango'ed with her on Saturday and she looked great. I bet it's the flu. Why is he crying so badly about the flu? How dare he scare my like this over the damn flu." I finally managed to say, "Ray! Ray! What do you mean she's really sick?!" He said, "Her heart keeps stopping. She went to the doctor with Aunt Jul this morning, then they took to the ER in an ambulance. It's not good." I immediately got off the phone with him and called my Aunt Julie to get the full story because my brother was so upset that he sounded confused and he honestly probably still was. I think everyone was...

When I called my Aunt Jul she spoke to me calmly telling me how my mom had my niece and nephew at the park on Saturday and was complaining of being lightheaded so they went home. Fast forward to Tuesday and she was only feeling worse, but kept working and taking care of everyone else as she always does. My Aunt Jul and Grammy tried getting her to go to Quick Care Tuesday night because they thought something looked off, but my stubborn mom refused and said she would wait and go to her family doctor in the morning. Then on Wednesday morning she couldn't even walk to her car to go to her doctor so my Aunt took her. The doctor said my mom wasn't getting oxygen to her heart and that she was in complete heart failure. He said she needed to go to the ER right away so she was transported to the ER and from there on it got even scarier. This is when my Aunt's voice started to get shaky and she broke down, too. They didn't know what was wrong with my mom's heart and they had to put a pacemaker in because the top and bottom of her heart weren't working in sync together. They also thought she was is septic shock, had a severe infection and had severe pneumonia. Her blood pressure was so drastically low that she was on medicine to raise it. (As I'm hearing all of this, I'm imagining the episode from Parenthood where Kristina goes into septic shock and nearly dies. I'm just imaging my mom in that scenario and losing my mind.) Of course, I was a wreck and wanted to book the first available flights I could, but everyone kept telling me to wait. 

When Ed got home from work we just cried together and couldn't understand how this could be happening. She was just here a few weeks ago and looked like a spring chicken. We were just baffled. I got phone calls pulling me in all different directions. People telling me, "your mom squeezed my hand really hard. She still has a lot of fight in her. She is going to be fine.", "If I were you I'd be here.", "The doctor's are very positive and optimistic.", and "It could go either way." I was so confused on what to do and knew I would not be getting ANY sleep.

My mom was in ICU and someone was required to stay the night with her so my Aunt Donna stayed the night and kept me posted all night. I could hardly sleep and I texted my Aunt to check on my mom every time the babies woke up to nurse. At 4:16am she told me that they were inserting an IV line to her heart with yet another medicine to try to bring her blood pressure up. I called her right away and she explained to me that things had gotten worse over the night and that this was the last medicine they could try to bring up her blood pressure. Then she told me she thought it was time we start making our way home. The house was silent as the babies were all sleeping peacefully and I crumbled in my bed feeling so defeated. Just last night people were telling me she was going to be fine and that we wouldn't need to fly home and now everyone is telling me that all of her organs are shutting down and that she could be dying. What happened to the doctors being optimistic? Everything was changing every minute and I couldn't stand not knowing what was really going on and seeing it with my own eyes so by 5:30am we booked a 9:45am flight to Pittsburgh and started packing up the family.

Despite stepping on a live scorpion while frantically trying to pack for 2 adults, 1 toddler and 2 babies in an hour and a half, we actually managed to get it all done since Tenley was passed out and not unpacking our bags as we packed them:

On our way to the airport, we arranged for Karina to pick up Pearl later and Mason to bring back our trash cans when he got off work. Let me just say how lucky I am to be able to hide my house key and head to the airport knowing that my friends will take care of everything I need at home before I even talk to them. 

(Thanks for putting our trash cans behind the gate, Mase! Big, BIG thanks to the Venturino's for watching Pearl for 10 days! We truly appreciated it! Love you guys!)

By the time we lugged all of our precious cargo through the airport we had about 30 minutes before our plane was supposed to start boarding, then they announced that something was wrong with our plane and it is going to be delayed. While our plane is being delayed and delayed, I kept calling to check on my mom and she just keeps getting worse. I remember constantly asking, "she's going to make it until I get there, right?" Latest news was that they had to do emergency open heart surgery and as I find that out we also hear that our plane needs parts flown in from Arizona and won't be departing until 1:45pm...are you kidding me?! I started crying and people instantly came over offering to hold our babies because yes, I was that distraught. I just wanted to see my mom. I just wanted to rub her hand, tell her I love her and let her know that I am there for her. Getting to Ohio was taking forever and seemed like an impossible task even though our three babies were being surprisingly well behaved. 

While waiting at the airport, I got to sit in on a conference call with the doctor who performed the open heart surgery on my mom and he said there wasn't an infection like he thought and that the problem was the valve on the top of her heart; which he repaired. She still had a lot of fluid around her lungs and her kidneys weren't up to par either. Also, her blood pressure was now too high after surgery and they were working on bringing it down. She wasn't out of the woods just yet, but I felt ok with being out of contact for 4 hours.

When boarding we learned that car seats have to go by the window; which would be fine and dandy if we were allowed to all sit in the same row; which we found out we were not allowed to do because with twins you need 5 oxygen masks and each row only has 4. So Tenley had the window, Evie and I the middle seat, while Wes and Ed sat in the Aisle seat on the other side of the plane. We were so anxious about getting some weird stranger in the middle of us, but we lucked out and had this Saint of a lady who's name just so happened to be Cathy (go figure!). She was a grandma who just recently moved away from her 2 year old granddaughter so she was so happy to sit next to us. She was also a nurse so I was telling her about why we were flying and she was so sweet and helpful with the kids. She helped us pass the babies back and forth, rocked Wes to sleep and read Tenley books. This lady was an angel. We couldn't have had such a smooth flight without "Grandma Cath":

FINALLY!!!!!! WE ARRIVED IN PITTSBURGH!!!!

Our traveling wasn't done yet as we still had a 45 minute drive to Grammy and Pop-Pop's house. As soon as we arrived Tenley's OCD kicked in and she had to start lining things up:

Although it was almost midnight, my Aunt Donna and brother, Mike, met us at Ed's house so we could drive up to the hospital together to see mom. Seeing her after what seemed like the longest day ever was like seeing a pot of gold at the end of a beautiful rainbow. There she was...breathing. Shallowly breathing, but breathing. Alive. Broken, but still so beautiful. I've never been more excited to see her and hold her in my life. All of my traveling was worth it in that moment when she squeezed my hand and told me she was happy I came. God, I love that woman. 

That night we all slept like rocks. Either that or I slept like a rock and didn't hear the baby's cry because I slept until 10am (Ohio time):

We had an amazing Fourth of July with our families. 

Tenley and Ed were exhausted from all the 4th of July fun that they slept in:

Jill came over to meet her newest cousins:

Since mom wasn't using Sir Koff-A-Lot, Ed and I thought it'd be fun if we took Chris, Jayla and Tenley to Build-A-Bear to make a special bear that she could use from the kids. We made it into an afternoon thing and had a blast: 

The kids picked out a pink bear (because, I mean, obviously), then they each took turns stuffing it, hugging it, picking out 5 hearts (1 for each grandkid) and rubbing the hearts on their hearts and muscles to make the bears heart extra strong and stuffing them in the bear, and giving the bear a bath:

The last thing we did was name the bear. Christopher decided to name the bear "Hope" since, "Grandma is always so full of Hope.":

After Build-A-Bear we hit up an arcade where the girls went right for these huge guns and looked like total pros:

On our way out of the mall we picked up some Chick-fil-a and headed to Kid's Town for some more fun:

After our fun and amazing day with the kids, Nicole, GiGi and Grandpa held down the fort while Ed and I went to visit mom in ICU:

She was doing so much better, her kidneys were doing better and she was having the liter of fluid around her left lung drained. She was starting to look better and was sitting in a chair for the first time! She was able to focus, listen and talk more so we were so excited to give her Hope. She loved it, but especially loved seeing the pictures of the kids making Hope together. Her ICU nurses told us the amazing news that miraculously the bottom of her heart started working on its own now that that valve repair was done so there was no need for her to have a pacemaker put in permanently. Finally, momma was on the road to recovery...it truly was the greatest day!!

Tenley looked so pretty as she slept in on Sunday:

Tenley is obsessed with these Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles bandaids at home so Ed broke out his old TMNTs and Tenley went nuts:

Sunday was a big day for my mom...she got moved from ICU to intermediate care!! WOO-HOO!! We went to visit her in her new room and she looked even better!! I swear, she's just amazing. After the hospital, we had a relaxing day full of visitors:

To finish off the night the babes tried carrots on the patio (and hated them), while Tenley tried mommy's favorite ice cream from Handel's- cotton candy (and loved it, duh):

Karina texted me this sweet picture of Pearl napping with Sofia to let me know that she was doing good:

(Thanks again, Karina!!)

I can't even begin to thank everyone enough who prayed for my mom; it truly meant the world to me (and to her). My mom is my best friend and I would be absolutely lost without her. I've said it before and I'll say it again, my mom is the strongest woman I know. She is such a fighter and I know she can make it through anything and I'm so lucky that she raised me to be just like her. I love you, mom. Keep on, Keepin' on!

Stay tuned for more on my momma...