Leaking

My eyes have been leaking like faucets turned to full tilt the last few days.  (Totally stealing the leaking eye business from Jen via Miss E, but it seems appropriate.)  I am not a crier.  I fucking hate it.  But it seems to be all that I have done well for the last 24 hours.  Everyone has to be good at something, right?

My Mom went to the hospital on Wednesday afternoon.  She had gone in for a follow-up to the pneumonia that she had been diagnosed with, and after her chest x-ray was still bad, they forwarded the film to a pulmonary doctor, lung guy, who said she needed to be admitted as soon as possible.

She had to wait about an hour for them to find a bed for her.  The hospitals are insanely full with people because of the flu.  They tested her for the flu, got an IV started, put her on oxygen, and then she sat.  She and my Dad waited.  Mack came down from Yellow State City, and she and I went up to see her.  She was pissed because she was starving, and thirsty.  They didn’t know when they could get her in for the CT scan.  There was a list of 22 people who needed to be scanned.  Her turn came at 10:30 Wednesday night.

Yesterday morning, I called to see how her night was.  I could tell that there was something wrong as soon as she picked up the phone.  She said she wanted to talk to my sister and I at the same time, but told me anyway.  I am the oldest after all.  The doctor had called her on the phone with the CT scan results.  There is a mass on the wall of her left lung, and her left lung was full of fluid.  They needed to schedule a biopsy, and insert a chest tube to drain the fluid.

Initially, she was told that they would be waiting 6-8 hours because they had let her eat, around 10:30 my sister sent me a message that they were taking her down to do the procedure.

I sent my boss an instant message, yelled something at one of my employees, and left.

I got there and got to the room where they were doing the procedure the exact moment they shooed everyone out.  I gave my Mom a kiss and a half hug, and was led out the door.

It was done about an hour later.  They drained at that time almost 3 liters of fluid from her left lung, the drain is still in and still going.  The biopsy results won’t be in until maybe tomorrow.

When we were brought back into the room, the nurse was talking to us and her about how things went, and it seems like as far as this procedure went that it went as well as it can go.  My Dad about broke my heart, grabbed my Mom’s hand and slipped their first wedding band onto her finger and said, “I gave this to you forty years ago, I love you Red.”  I don’t think my sister saw or heard, but I lost it.

I am a bag of nerves and tears.

She seems to be in pretty good spirits, and that is good.  She does feel better after getting the fluid drained from that lung, and she can breathe much better.

The kids can’t go to the hospital because of the flu.  Mea is just devastated that she can’t go give her Nana kisses to make it better.  I think my Mom wants to see the little kids as bad as they want to see her.  This morning Mea made her a picture for me to take up to her room.  It will have to do for now.

My Mom is the glue that holds this family together.  She is the matriarch of the family, of that there is no doubt.  She still is the one who settles arguments between my sister and I, she is the one who makes us kiss and make up.  She is the keeper of records, the journaler of all of our lives events.  There is seldom a day that goes by that she hasn’t recorded in one of her books somewhere.  There are several decades worth of leather-bound books filled with her words somewhere in their house, one for each year, for at least forty plus years.

Last night, I just sat and thought.  Thinking all the thoughts that randomly come to your mind when you are so overwhelmed at the thoughts of things.  I remembered a while back of my Mom reminding me of the time I ran away.  (Rebellious teenager, oomph.)  I left a note, and said that I was leaving, that I wouldn’t live under their totalitarian rules anymore and that I would be living somewhere else, but that I would be back to visit on Sunday as it was Mother’s Day. 

I was back that Sunday, for good.  With their totalitarian rules and everything.

Last night I sent her a text letting her know that I let their dogs out, that I gave extra snuggles to her baby beagle, the one who goes to daycare, and puppy parties and buys gifts for her puppy friends, and to tell her that I love her.  Apologized for not saying that I love her enough.  She replied that we never say it enough, but that she always knows.  She always knows.

So now, we sit.  We wait.  I stew.  And cry.  Or leak rather.  My mind is not far away from her.  It is filled with thoughts and memories, and praying for more memories.