As per the following note...
...from Bert which I received this morning...:

I got an email from Gail a while ago saying she had problems with her internet provider and had to pull everything down, including her email address, but that she would be getting a new provider and re-establishing everything and she'd let everyone know when, but I haven't heard from her since, so I'm not sure what the delay is.
I will forward your note to her so she knows you're concerned.
Thanks,
Bert

----- Original Message ----
From: Marvel
To: Bert

Sorry for the personal message but have you (Bert) or any other regular reader heard from Gail of "The Mom & Me Journals dot Net"? Her blog is down, did she move it? Are things alright with her mother? I've had some personal events taking up my time and haven't kept up with my favorite blogs. Her Myspace account is gone as well.

...I guess I'd better get cracking, posting, and emailing in order to let everyone know what's going on. First, a new post.

    It's been a hectic couple of months since I lost my domain, that loss being the least hectic of all problems. Aside from my mother's falling episode, which is probably more accurately referred to as "collapsing", since she actually never fell, about six weeks ago I caught a really, really bad cold, probably "the flu", despite us both getting flu shots in early November [A few weeks ago a noted through the news that this year's flu shot missed its calling by about 60%, so that could explain part of why I was vulnerable, this year.]. I worked very, very hard to make sure my mother remained safe from this cold, but into the fourth week of my suffering, she finally caught it. She's in her third week, now, and recovering much more quickly than I did, thank the gods, but it hit her hard. Since her doctor is in Mesa, we already had an appointment set up to see him on March 6th and, truly, there isn't much a physician can do about a viral cold except treat the symptoms, her doctor prescribed a couple of courses of Z-pak 5 day antibiotics to make sure she didn't develop pneumonia and recommended I give her guaifenex to keep the mucus loose and easily expelled.
    Her second week was the worst. She was becoming increasingly weak and I consigned her, again, to the wheelchair to avoid possible falls. She looked awful. Last Thursday I decided, regardless, to take her in for her February blood draw, which I'd been putting off day by day because she just didn't seem up to it, in order to see if anything else was going on. Sure enough, her hemoglobin had dropped from a nicely acceptable 10.1 on January 23rd to 8.1. Bad sign. After some quick research, I began to suspect the guaifenex, as it can cause stomach irritation and it, as well as the acetaminophen, was also causing some pretty wild blood sugar readings. I took her off the guaifenex last Friday. Her doctor called this Monday and asked that I take her in for a blood transfusion. However, by then she was pinking up and feeling significantly better, cold and all. Since there was a 5 hour wait at the emergency room, I took her in for another blood draw on Monday and, sure enough, her hemoglobin is coming up. It was 8.6 on Monday. The doctor said, as long as it was climbing not to bother with the transfusion. In the meantime I rescheduled our "routine" appointment in Mesa for March 13th, next Thursday. The doctor said not to worry about having another blood draw taken for "14 days", although I'm sure he'll draw blood next Thursday.
    In the meantime she I'm noticing that she looks much pinker in the evening than in the morning, which figures, considering that throughout her day she received six 150 mg doses of iron polysaccharide, equaling 900 mg in all. The thing is, because of her cold she's been sleeping more than usual and I've been allowing this. Yesterday, though, when I noticed how pale her lips were in the morning, I decided, and told her, that I was going to absolutely limit her night sleep to her typical 12 hours (it's been 13 - 14, lately), and her naps to 2 hours (which have extended to 3 hours, lately), so that her iron course starts earlier and is evenly divided throughout a 12 hour period. She's agreed and we are starting this regimen today, in about 14 minutes. I've also been making sure that her evening meal is meat heavy, to add as much easily digestible iron as possible. Still, I'm freaking, a little, over her continued slow recovering from her severely anemic state and am not completely convinced that she won't need a transfusion before her appointment next Thursday. Thus, I've decided, depending on how she looks and feels today, I'll probably take her in for another CBC tomorrow afternoon, just to see if her hemoglobin in continuing to rise. If it's dropping, I'll get in her in for a transfusion on Friday, five hour wait or no.
    In the meantime, her spirits remain high, as usual, her will is incredibly strong, probably because she has been feeling as though she has to battle me to go to bed. I've cut her lisinopril back to 3 10 mg tabs, again, too. After two weeks on the 4 tab regimen she began to collapse, yet again, just as she had in September of last year when I put on on 4 tabs. This finally clicked with me. I had to make a decision between moderately high systolic blood pressure and trying to keep her from falling and decided, considering that she's been living well with moderately high systolic blood pressure for some years, best to allow that over the possibility of a fall.
    How am I doing? Well, I'm tense, and remain a little freaked, and tired. Every day something happens and I think, Hmmm...I should report on this and, besides, I should let everyone know where I'm posting.... Then, the day gets away from me and I fall into bed exhausted sometime after midnight, after winding down with a few crime dramas on the cable networks. The gods only know why I've zeroed in on crime dramas (old "issues" of the Law & Order series and its offshoots) but they seem to settle me down, take my mind of what's happening here and allow me to sleep when my head hits the pillow.
    Well, it's just about time to awaken the Mom and slip her first iron pill of the day down her throat. It will probably be several hours before I'm able to get back here, email everyone and let you all know where I'm posting. Know that I apologize profusely for the long lag in notifying you of my whereabouts and whyabouts...I'm just trying to keep my head above it all. Lastly, thank you Bert, for sending me a kick-ass email.
    It's been weird.
    Later.
- posted by Gail Rae @ 11:56   email  this post