Update on my sister and this past week

Okay so the last time that I wrote on here was on the 1st. So much has happened in that time frame. When I wrote last, my sister had been taken to the ER in Cleveland after being found really sick and almost unresponsive in her apartment. 

Well, Mary spent 7 days in the ICU. There were several times during the first few days where we weren't sure if she was going to make it. When she arrived at the ER, her kidney function was 30%, she was incoherent, her calcium was sky high, her blood pressure was super low, etc...

Doctors had no idea what was going on. They would treat one problem and then another number would go out of whack. She was in a really bad place, including at one point having hallucinations and psychotic episodes that lasted about 48 hours with no sleep. She went through a cat scan, 2 MRIs, a spinal tap, etc.  

This was from later in the week when she was feeling a little better. She had to do dialysis for 2 days. 

Finally, they got some answers part way through the week. Basically her adrenal glands shut down completely causing her body to attack itself. There is no telling how long her adrenal glands have been shut down. This is an autoimmune disorder that you typically see in patients that are 65+ in age, not in a 22 year old. They finally were able to get her stabilized and the numbers where they wanted them by this past Friday. 

Her prognosis is good as long as she takes care of herself and keeps on her medication that she was prescribed. (She is now on 7, including steroids) Needless to say it was a very hard week for everyone. She was released late Saturday afternoon and my parents and sister got back home around midnight Saturday night. I took the kids out to my parents' home on Sunday to see Mary and she looked tired but better than had in a few months.  

Dinner time at the house this past week. 

I also went to my parents' so that I could take my niece and nephew back to them. My parents have custody of my niece and nephew, so while they were in Cleveland with my sister, my niece and nephew were here with me. It was crazy chaos. My niece is 14, but with a mentality of a 8-9 year old. My nephew is 7 and just wants to please, but also gets anxious if things are messy (which with 5 kids in the house things would be messy.) My dad kept thanking me and I just told him that this is what families do. 

Having my niece and nephew here also presented the challenge of having to cancel my babysitting and tutoring for the week because it was just too much. I have cancelled my babysitting today so that I have a day to clean house and to breath, but will be back to schedule tomorrow. 

Right now, I just wanted to get this update up here and I am also procrastinating on cleaning the litter boxes...but it must be done so I guess I should sign off here and go do that. I hope everyone has a wonderful Monday.