Nothing Short of A Miracle

It's been a long time since I posted. Two or three lifetimes it seems.

Mom is coming home tomorrow. After a long stay in a physical rehab place to regain her strength after being sick for so long. Her recovery still makes me glance upwards in appreciation.

As I said in my last post, she went downhill abruptly in the middle of the week. The doctors were planning to do the tracheostomy on Monday. When I spoke to the nurses on Sunday evening, May 3rd, that was still the plan.

I was at work on Monday (May 4th) when my phone started ringing. I dropped what I was doing and ran to take the call. It was Dad.

"She's awake. She's... they... She's off the breathing machine, awake. I was going to check on her, sit with her for a while before going to work and I turned the corner and she was up, looking at me, with just the mask on her face."

Needless to say, we were all in complete shock. Dad called me somewhere around 10 times that day and just kept repeating himself "I turned the corner and she was up, with just the mask on..."

None of the doctors can explain it. She hadn't been making very good progress at all, but apparently that changed overnight.

She stayed in the ICU for a few more days, then was in a regular room, then was sent to a physical rehab place. And tomorrow, between 10:30 and 11:00 she is coming home. Home after over a month in the hospital, 10 days in a coma, brushing elbows with death and coming back to her family.

It's nothing short of a miracle.

And in the midst of all of this, I graduated. It was hard, knowing that I wasn't going to have any family at graduation. Dan and his entire family were coming, but it just wasn't the same as having my own family there.

Night before the big day Dan was helping me with the last minute packing and suggested we go out for dinner. We headed out and I got the shock of my life. There, waiting at the restaurant, was my brother and sister. He had flown in from the West Coast, picked up lil sis and drove the 5 hours down to school to surprise me, because he didn't want me to not have family there at graduation. It meant more to me than I think anyone will ever know.

Graduation itself went off without a hitch. I do wish Mom and Dad could have been there, and they've both tearfully told me that they would have given the world to see it, but what is important is that I still have both my parents with me. And Dan recorded it, so it's all on video.