Mixing Memory

UPDATE: A few things. First, Kelly's c-section has been moved up to tomorrow again. It's not for health reasons. One of her doctor's c-sections scheduled for tomorow ended up happening last night, so a slot opened up.

Kelly told me to express thanks to everyone who's sent her messages or money. She's collecting email addresses, and she's going to send out thank you notes with pictures of the new baby when she's able.

Next up, in case you're curious, she knows that the baby's a boy, and she's already named him Ryan. There's actually a story behind this. Kelly's brother lives in Carpentersville, IL, and was dating a girl there named Ryanne Kelly became close to Ryanne, and began to treat her like a sister. Ryanne was a student at Northern Illinois University, a psych major even. She was the youngest student killed in the shooting there last February. It hit Kelly really hard, and she decided that whether the baby was a boy or a girl, she was going to give it the name Ryan.

Sorry for not posting more Lakoff reviews. It's not that the book's so bad that I just can't go on. I mean, it is really, really bad, but I finished it a while back, and have a couple reviews just about ready to go. But something's come up in my personal life, and it's taken up a huge chunk of my time and energy. So I thought I'd tell you about it, and do something that anyone who knows me will tell you I'm not very good at, and am very uncomfortable with -- ask for help.

OK, the background. My son's mother and I have one of those strange relationships that only people who share a child and absolutely nothing else can have. We were never married and, in fact, hadn't even known each other that long when she got pregnant (we were in our early 20s, and had been dating for a few months). One of the symptoms of such a relationship is that we get along pretty horribly any time we're around each other for extended periods of time. And by extended periods of time, I mean about 30 minutes. However, while I am my son's primary caregiver these days (his name is Dylan, by the way -- that's him on the sidebar), and have been for most of his life, he really loves his mom, and so she and I have had to be in close contact pretty much for the last 10 years (Dylan's 10). Strangely, if you asked her, she'd tell you that I'm her best friend (she says this pretty regularly; I can't quite figure out why, since most of our conversations involve her yelling at me, but then, I've never really understood her). I, on the other hand, think of her as a sort of sister or cousin who I don't like to be around, but who I don't want anything bad to happen to. Which leads me to her present predicament.

Last December, she (her name is Kelly) discovered that she's pregnant. She decided to keep the baby, despite some obvious complications: she's barely surviving financially, works 12 hour days in order to barely survive, and the father of the baby is married and, on learning that she was pregnant, threatened to kill both her and the child, and then promptly disappeared. Not an ideal situation, but for various reasons (some of which I think I understand), she decided to keep the child. She was due August 15, and until June, her pregnancy seemed to be going smoothly. She was even able to set things up so that after she had the baby, she'd be able to work from home for a few weeks, because she doesn't have any sort of paid maternity leave.

In June, she learned that she had total placenta previa. If you're not familiar with this (I wasn't), it basically means that hers is a high risk pregnancy, and she has to have a c-section. In fact, they moved the date up from the 15th of August to July 25, to be safe. She was able to adjust her plans with work, and this seemed to be doable at first.

Then, two weeks ago, she began to have severe lower back and stomach pain, which seemed to her like contractions. She went to see her OB, who immediately sent her to the hospital. There she learned that she had a severe urinary tract infection, and preeclampsia. Turns out neither are very good for fetuses. So, the doctor said she would have to stay in the hospital until the c-section, and moved the date of the c-section up as far as she felt she could, which was July 18.

As she was in the hospital on bed rest, Kelly's work started bugging her about working from home, or in this case, the hospital. Her hospital room didn't have internet access, so it was difficult for her to work, and because of this, they started rethinking her whole work-from-home arrangement. She works for doctors, and you'd think they'd understand that working from a hospital while on bed rest because of high blood pressure is difficult, and know better than to work tirelessly to stress someone out in that situation, but no. As a result of pressure from work, Kelly demanded to be sent home so that she could work and keep her work-from-home arrangement. Her doctor eventually consented, with conditions (she was technically on bed rest still, and a home-care nurse was to come by regularly to check her blood pressure and the level of protein in her urine), and she went home after four days in the hospital.

But, within 24 hours, she began bleeding, which, with placenta previa, is a very bad thing. When she told her doctor, her doctor demanded she go back to the hospital, which is where she is now, and where she will be until after the c-section (the doctor moved the c-section date to the 19th). Health-wise, she seems to be OK right now, but as you might expect from what I've just been saying, Kelly's work is freaking out, She's been able to work from the hospital somewhat regularly, by being wheeled into one of the main lobbies and having nurses come check on her every hour, but she's still losing hours.

OK, so that's what's been going on. I've been running around doing what I can for Kelly, because she has no one else to help her. She even has my laptop to work from, which means no posting from home for me. But she needs more help than I can give her. The day before she first went to the hospital, her air conditioner broke down. We live in a very, very hot part of the country, so living through July and August without a/c is dangerous. So, she paid the $600+ for the a/c, which, because of lost work, meant not having enough money to pay other bills (including her mortgage, apparently). Plus, she lost some of her 40 hours of paid personal time (that's all she gets; again, no maternity leave) during her first visit to the hospital, which means she'll lose even more work hours after she has the c-section and is incapable of working even from the hospital. In essence, she's in dire financial straights.

So, if you like Mixing Memory, or just like helping people out, maybe you could throw a buck or two her way. You can send her money via PayPal (her email address is yllek@ymail.com). You could also send her a note of encouragement at that email address, if you felt so inclined, or just leave her a message here. She has a very strained relationship with her family, and has no real friends here or anywhere else, save me, so she's feeling more than a bit lonely in her hospital room, in addition to being overwhelmed with stress.