Another Hospital Stay

On Thursday afternoon, I got a text from S1 informing us that my mom was going to the hospital. B1 took her to the ER, and we were relieved to learn that the restrictions for visitors had been loosened somewhat and he was able to stay with her. It's always better to have a second pair of eyes and ears to take in everything that is happening.

Obviously I was panicking because I worry about my mom all the time and hearing that she was in so much pain that it necessitated a trip to the ER was super scary for me. I actually called my mom as soon as I saw the text from S1, and she could barely speak, so that really did me in.

Unfortunately, patients are only allowed one visitor. Per day. No swapping allowed. My brother and I texted back and forth about whether I should go to the hospital at all, since he was already with her. One thing in our favor was that I've been vaccinated and B1 hasn't received the vaccine yet, so he played that angle and they agreed to let me be my mom's visitor so my brother could leave. We switched places around 6:15 pm and I am so grateful the nurses allowed us to do that!

They did all sorts of tests – blood work, EKG, CT scan – and determined that my mom had an abscess in her abdomen and would need to be admitted. Since she was being admitted, I had to leave, because the one daily visitor is only allowed to visit between 1:00 and 5:00 pm, so when they finally had a room ready for her, right around 10:00 pm, I went home and worried about her all night.

I went to school in the morning, but took the afternoon off so I could go and be with her during visiting hours. When I arrived at the hospital, her room was empty because they had taken her to surgery, so I ended up sitting by myself for most of the afternoon. When they finally brought her back, I was so happy to see her, and I was highly entertained by the things she said while she was recovering from the effects of the anesthesia. Due to the fact that she was out of the room for most of the afternoon, the nurses let me stay past 5:00 pm, which was very kind of them.

I spent Saturday afternoon with her, and by then there was some talk of her being discharged in a day or two, which was very encouraging. We decided that she should come back to our house because C is working from home, so she wouldn't be alone during the day, so we went to her apartment on Sunday morning to pick up some of her things. I visited her again on Sunday, and by the time I got there, they'd inserted a midline IV in her arm so that she'd be able to continue the intravenous antibiotics at home.

I went to school today and both C and I waited to hear when she was being discharged – if it had been early in the day, C would have gone, and if it had been later in the afternoon, I could have gone straight from school. However, it worked out that she wouldn't be discharged until about 5:00 pm, so we both went to get her and we took Ginny with us. A home health nurse will be coming to our house tomorrow to get the IV meds underway.

Speaking of Ginny, she was very excited when my mom got in the car, and she is very glad to have her grandmother back home for a few weeks!

It has been a very exhausting few days, but we are relieved with how everything turned out.

One of the most challenging aspects of loving someone who has a terminal illness is that every single issue has the potential to cause very serious complications.

My mom is the toughest, strongest person I know and walking with her out of that hospital room today felt even more poignant than it normally would have, given that it's International Women's Day.

I love my mom more than I could ever express!
"Fly Me to the Moon" is one of our songs.

Happy Tails to you!