About a month ago, Dave’s mom had gotten into a car accident. Ultimately, she spent 3 weeks in the hospital, the last 2 of which was in physical and speech therapy. The testing indicated that, at some point, she’d had a mini stroke. They can’t determine if that was what caused the accident or not. A police officer happened to be at the intersection where the accident occurred, and witnessed everything. Her head had dropped down, then snapped back up, during which time she hit the car in front of her. After the collision, she had a seizure, which was what led to her being hospitalized. There was an open container of alcohol in the car, but she had not a drop in her blood stream. This was quite shocking, considering she’s an alcoholic.
Leading up to the accident, she had a lot of back and neck problems, and the doctors said she had really bad bulging discs that would need to be operated on. The neck would have to be done first, and not having the neck operated on would mean she couldn’t get her back operated on. She was prescribed narcotics and physical therapy to see if she could avoid surgery. Combining the narcotics with her drinking was VERY stupid on the doctor’s part. Certainly they had access to her medical information that would show a previous hospitalization for liver failure and the resulting rehab? Anyway, I guess she’d been passing out at random times in random places, but otherwise was having a lot of trouble sleeping. So, we’re not sure if that’s what led to her NOT drinking, and that quitting drinking was somehow related to the stroke, seizures, and in turn the car accident? For as severe as her alcoholism was, to quit drinking altogether, whether or not it was even intentional, can wreak serious havoc that pretty much requires hospitalization (rehab) to basically survive the withdrawals, which can include seizures and probably strokes too.
So, back to this hospitalization. Needless to say, she wasn’t drinking once in the hospital. She had some memory issues, probably from the stroke, but that’s improving. She hasn’t had a drop to drink in at least a month, now, and I saw her about a week ago and she was a completely different person. As clear-minded as she was, I don’t know if I’ve EVER seen her that way. Apparently her husband didn’t know that she had a drinking problem, so I sure as hell hope that, now that he is aware, he ensures he doesn’t enable her to resume drinking. This is her second chance at life, and everybody needs to do their part to ensure she has the chance to make it something. Ultimately the choice is hers, but since she’s without a job and relies on Todd’s money, I hope he’s taking steps to make sure he doesn’t enable it. If she sneaks around, that’s different… it’s a matter of not making it easy for her. I want her to want to live the rest of her life to the fullest. Not to mention that, once a person has had a stroke, future strokes are more probable. Anything that other people do that could potentially influence her to drink would be a bad thing.
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