Monday, July 23rd

The phone rang at 5:18am.. and it was Mom. Almost afraid to answer.. but I did.

“What time are you coming in today?”  She had told me not to leave last night and to wait until I heard from her today.

“Well, if you are calling me at 5:00am to ask me when I am coming in then I would guess I am leaving right now.”

“I think you’d better!”

No time time pack, shower, etc. Threw things in a bag, grabbed two laundry baskets full of dirty clothes that I hadn’t had time to wash and got in the car. I guess I will have to wash clothes at Mom’s if I plan on wearing anything other than what I have on.

Long drive… seemed longer than normal, but maybe it was because I was in such a huge hurry to get here. Walked in the room and Mom, Dad and our Cousin Kathy were here. Kerrie looked at me, smiled and then looked like she was going to cry…. “It’s here.. it’s here…”

“Yes Kerrie.. I’m here. And I suppose right now I look like an IT”

She was having some pain this morning, hard time breathing, difficulty speaking and kept looking around and at Mom, Dad and I. I told her she should close her eyes and rest, but she said she didn’t want to. Wanted to make sure she could see us as much as possible. 

Very hard for her to communicate, and difficult to understand her, but she told me something interesting.. Mom and Dad were in the hallway and I was sitting in the room, holding Kerrie’s hand. She looked at me and said, “I like your friends.”

“You like my friends?”
“Yes! They’re nice.”

“Kerrie, are my friends here now?”
“They are but they aren’t”
“Are they in the room?”
“They are but they aren’t”

“Do we know them?”
“No.. but they’re nice.”

“I’m glad they’re nice Kerrie”

“Me too”

Some time around noon, Kerrie went into a very deep sleep and hasn’t woken up. It’s a little after midnight right now… she hasn’t had dilauded since 11:00am, because the doctors wanted to see if they could get her to wake up a little more, before they gave her any more, but she hasn’t yet..  She opens her right eye, every once in a while, and you can tell she’s looking at you, but when you speak to her she can barely move her lips to respond and not even a slight whisper comes out. Her fever is down… but breathing is still labored, so the oxygen is still running.

We all know this is bad, but Dr. G pointed out today that Kerrie has made it through some amazing things that she shouldn’t have made it through.. maybe she’ll make it through this too.

She had several visitors today, though she won’t remember, and wasn’t awake for them.. Almost out entire Cousin Clan, from Vassar, was here. Kerrie opened her eyes, briefly, for Chris and Paul but that was it.

Ron got here a little after 11:30pm.. made an 800 mile drive to get here today. Kerrie saw him and smiled… I think that was well worth the trip.

Mom’s sleeping now, Kerrie’s in and out, and Kerrie’s nurse has moved a reclining chair in here for me. Mom, Kerrie and I are going to have a little slumber party.

We’ll update as much as we can… and if we can’t, I’ll call someone to do an update for us in the gallery. Mom’s phone has been ringing all day and it’s sometimes difficult to answer the phone and take care of anything else… Please call if you are planning on coming to the hospital, so that we can tell you if it’s a good time to come, if there are too many people here, etc. We will not let more than two people in the room, unless it’s us, so we definatley want you to call before you make the drive down here.

Because of the amount of calls we are getting, we ask that you check the web page for updates on how she is doing instead of calling. Not to sound rude, but it’s too difficult to answer call after call and take care of Kerrie at the same time. If we can cut out the calls from people who are wanting to ask how Kerrie is it will help us out a great deal.

Feel free to come to the hospital, but please call us first.. the same rules apply that always have..

I’ll post an update when I have more info

Jenn