It has been an eventful week.
On Tuesday, the Violent Crimes Apprehension Team brought Haynes into custody.
Two (nearly three) weeks ago, the Victim’s Advocate called me and told me that they would be actively searching for Haynes. I was also told not to make that public knowledge, on the off chance that she was smart enough to be following my social media. Though I think that is giving her too much credit, I understand the precautions and I don’t think that she stayed hidden that long without assistance.
On Wednesday, Haynes had a hearing. I didn’t go, but my parents did. At that hearing, they set another hearing date and left the $100,000 bail in place. At this point, Haynes is remaining in custody. The next hearing is on July 27th.
I also found out on Wednesday that the Prosecuting Attorney is moving to a new department and will be transferring this case to another lawyer. On one hand, I feel like I should have faith in the lawyers the county assigns. On the other hand, I don’t trust our justice system at all and was pleased to have someone so obviously competent and good at his job working on this case. The disappointment and skepticism is currently winning out as the dominant emotion.
Right now, Haynes is in custody and will stay there until July 27th or until her family posts bail. On July 27th, she will again have the choice to either plead guilty and take the plea deal, or to go to trial. She retains the choice to plead guilty and take the plea deal up until a verdict is given in the trial. Again, though I am pleased to see systems in place to protect the accused, I feel that the wronged party is often shut out of these conversations. I don’t like being silenced.
Because that isn’t enough excitement for one week, the world had to throw in some bonus material.
My mother had an angiogram on Tuesday. I dropped her off at the hospital and hung out until they brought her in for a procedure, then I went to work. About the time I was expecting a phone call from the surgeon, I got the phone call from Hennepin County instead. A few hours later, my mother called. The surgeon hadn’t called me because they didn’t have good news.
They found 4 occlusions in the arteries feeding blood to her heart. This means she needs quadruple bypass surgery. If they’d found one or two small ones, they could either put a balloon in the artery and expand it, or they could put in a stent to hold open that part of the artery. What they found was more extensive and requires surgery.
A quadruple bypass is open heart surgery. It is broken ribs and external heart machine levels of surgery. It happens on July 11th. She’ll spend 5 days in the hospital after the surgery, then she’ll come home. She’s going to be in pain, which if you’ve ever spent time around my mother in pain you know she’s going to be as grumpy as grumpy comes. She won’t be allowed to drive for 6 weeks after surgery, which will also make her grumpy. Basically, this is going to be one big grump fest.
There are a lot of pieces to this for me. One of those pieces is terror. My mother has been a pillar of support this past year and throughout my life. I’ve been living in her house for 14 months. The idea that she is mortal is terrifying.
Another piece is shock. My mother is super active. Up until a month ago, she spent her days chasing children and continues to spend her weekends stiltwalking, doing farm chores, and taking the dog for walks and swims. She doesn’t sit idly around the house eating potato chips and steak. She’s a vegetarian with an active lifestyle. How did she end up with such occluded arteries? (Yes, I know, genetics and all that. Don’t explain the medicine to me, I get it. The question was rhetorical.)
And yet another part of me has started planning. Planning for taking care of a crabby mother, visiting my grandma and helping with paperwork and minor questions about her care, feeding and exercising both animals, mowing the lawns at both houses, weeding the gardens, grocery shopping, and all the other tasks it takes to run this household and maintain my own house. It is going to be a busy, sleep-deprived, and grumpy couple of weeks. My brother is coming in for the first week and my father will be in and out of town throughout this whole mess. But I will still be the primary caretaker across the board.
I’m still figuring out what all of this means. The events of this week have thrown the next several months into chaos. I was thinking about applying for jobs. I was setting up to buckle down on house renovations. I was starting to make plans, without having panic attacks at the thought.
I’m not anymore. I don’t know what the next few months will bring. Will I need to stay in town for a court case? How long will it take my mother to recover? Until I can start answering some major questions, I’m not planning. I’m taking all plans off the table and re-focusing on these new priorities. Whatever that means.