there are few things in life that will make you feel as helpless as watching your mother cry in pain as she lies in a hospital bed.
Late this morning my mom asks me to get dressed because she might need a ride. This raises a warning flag right away, considering she hates my driving. While she is in the bathroom I answer the phone, which turns out to be the doctor's office. They said since she is in so much pain that she should go to the emergency room. Remember that flag that went up a moment ago? On the way there she tells me that she thinks she is having another kidney stone. For those of you who haven't had the joy of passing one of those, or of seeing someone go through it, IT HURTS!!! I figure everything is good, and that this is no big deal, after all she has had them before. Until I start hearing things like "on a scale of 1-10 how bad is the pain?" "10!!" and "Kidney stones don't cause that kind of pain..." Oh yeah, her room at the ER had one of those pluse measuring things you wear on your fingure.... her's was broke, it kept flat lining every five minutes. I'm not sure I can describe how it feels to see your mother drifting off into a morphine induced slumber then see her moniter flat line and start the anoying beep sound you hear on the TV shows all the time. At least she had the decency to tell me to shut it up before my brian totaly caught up with what I saw. I have to say that my opinion of the general staff there is kind of low, they didn't bother to check on the alarm at all untill one the orderlys who was checking stock saw it go off. On an interesting side note, he happen to be a guy I went to high school with, funny I always thought he would end up the struggling artist type... So I eneded up sitting in the ER with my mom for 5 hours thinking that I once thought the US Post Office had a shit load of paperwork. It took almost a half hour for them to get my mom any thing for the pain, and she was crying out from how bad it was teh whole time. All I can say is if you have to go to the ER try an ambulence first, they drug first and ask questions later... The good news is that the stone passed while she was drugged up, I guess she will do anything to get out of work, and now she is cruled up on the couch with the blanket sleeping. The moral of the story? Few things in life suck like looking down at your mom and thinking she just died.
p.s. Sorry this is a slightly depressing entry, despite the semi happy ending. I tried to lighten it up with a few inapporprite jokes here and there, but I'm sure you'll forgive me since I've had a LONG day.
Night
Late this morning my mom asks me to get dressed because she might need a ride. This raises a warning flag right away, considering she hates my driving. While she is in the bathroom I answer the phone, which turns out to be the doctor's office. They said since she is in so much pain that she should go to the emergency room. Remember that flag that went up a moment ago? On the way there she tells me that she thinks she is having another kidney stone. For those of you who haven't had the joy of passing one of those, or of seeing someone go through it, IT HURTS!!! I figure everything is good, and that this is no big deal, after all she has had them before. Until I start hearing things like "on a scale of 1-10 how bad is the pain?" "10!!" and "Kidney stones don't cause that kind of pain..." Oh yeah, her room at the ER had one of those pluse measuring things you wear on your fingure.... her's was broke, it kept flat lining every five minutes. I'm not sure I can describe how it feels to see your mother drifting off into a morphine induced slumber then see her moniter flat line and start the anoying beep sound you hear on the TV shows all the time. At least she had the decency to tell me to shut it up before my brian totaly caught up with what I saw. I have to say that my opinion of the general staff there is kind of low, they didn't bother to check on the alarm at all untill one the orderlys who was checking stock saw it go off. On an interesting side note, he happen to be a guy I went to high school with, funny I always thought he would end up the struggling artist type... So I eneded up sitting in the ER with my mom for 5 hours thinking that I once thought the US Post Office had a shit load of paperwork. It took almost a half hour for them to get my mom any thing for the pain, and she was crying out from how bad it was teh whole time. All I can say is if you have to go to the ER try an ambulence first, they drug first and ask questions later... The good news is that the stone passed while she was drugged up, I guess she will do anything to get out of work, and now she is cruled up on the couch with the blanket sleeping. The moral of the story? Few things in life suck like looking down at your mom and thinking she just died.
p.s. Sorry this is a slightly depressing entry, despite the semi happy ending. I tried to lighten it up with a few inapporprite jokes here and there, but I'm sure you'll forgive me since I've had a LONG day.
Night