Jeez, what a week!

Long time, no blog. Well, my mother was released from the hospital on Saturday with no real diagnosis for her problems. Her only treatment was draining her bloating. Yesterday she had an appointment at the Arizona Heart Institute and was subjected to a 6 hour ordeal to have an angiogram. So, with all the tests at the hospital they didn't figure out that my mother's aorta is 100% blocked and her body actually rerouted blood around that blockage. Her heart is functioning at 20% power. How the hospital could have not found that after 11 days is astounding. She needs triple-bypass surgery pretty much as soon as possible. Her next visit to the AHI is this Tuesday so the internist can determine if she is strong enough to have the necessary surgery. I think that is sort of stupid because if she doesn't have the surgery she will die, probably within the year. I haven't blogged since last week because then I would have to think about the whole thing. It is scary to see my mother in such bad shape and for her to face such a surgery. I don't want to lose her still so early, she is only 60. So today she and my dad have gone back to their home in the White Mountains, outside of Show Low, so she can rest from the invasive angiogram procedure and be ready for the next phase of her treatment.
This weekend I will have my "stepdaughter" Ashley over this weekend since I actually will have no other scheduled house guests. Technically, she is supposed to be my husband's daughter from a previous relationship, but the mother refused to acknowledge any father on the birth certificate. God, I have a lot of problems with her. Actually, she has a lot of problems which makes my life pretty miserable. There is something wrong with her, but she hasn't really been properly diagnosed with what those problems are. She sort of has the look of someone with Downs Syndrome. You can look at her face and you know there is something that is not quite normal about her. She doesn't seem overly mentally challenged since she does o.k. in school, but that is only with a staff member that accompanies her all the time while she is at school. She seems to not really care to separate fantasy from reality; she is obsessed with Nintendo Mario characters and the Sonic the Hedgehog characters and she will talk about them like they were completely real. She is 16, almost 17, and nobody that knows her will say that she is remotely ready to get her driving permit. I could go on, which I will this weekend and perhaps I can control myself again to not actually whack her upside the head, just on general principles. She really worries me around the babies; I cannot ever leave her alone with them.
On the bright side, Tommy and Tabitha are healthy and getting bigger and smarter every day. I count my blessings on them, they give me so much in my life. BTW, the above picture is of Tabitha and my mother, from April of this year.