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2006-06-04 || 9:28 p.m. || mom || my ma is better and at home and drinking lots of rootbeer floats. when i called today she was sitting outside, tethered to an oxygen-making machine with her 50-foot tube, and she said she'll come down to san diego in a couple weeks when michael and i are down there if everybody can handle the sight of her in a wheelchair. "oh, mom," i said. it turns out when dad called a couple of fridays ago, on the morning she was supposed to be flying to portland, they thought she was going to die. my mom told me she was sure of it. that was it. but she didn't. she was in the hospital for ten days, and kelly and i were there for four. they changed the diagnosis a couple times. she didn't think she'd walk anymore. we compulsively watched the monitors above her head tracking her oxygen level and heart rate. i washed her hair with no-rinse shampoo. we speculated about the wedding. my mom held the hospital-room phone to my ear so that my auntie living in florida could tell me she was very proud of me for being willing to cancel the wedding in portland. we did each other's astrological charts. dad dutifully brought salads and sandwiches and milkshakes to place on the tray that held hospital food. when the nurse couldn't get around to walk my mom up and down the hall, when it was determined she needed exercise to get well enough to go home, my dad held her up and they slow-danced to the sound of the television. kell and i went to the mall when my mom slept or had more tests or when we needed to get out. at night we went home to mom and dad's house and watched tv. we made sure we were in the same room as my dad. on the first couple nights i listened to him go into his bedroom, shut the door, turn on the shower and sob. my mom made friends with the nurses and doctors. her roommate, adeline (age 92, pneumonia), got to know us by name and the stories my mom told when we weren't there. we fetched her books that fell out of her hands. we offered to bring her things from the outside world, but her bad hearing always misinterpreted it as a question about the weather. kelly and dad and i sat around mom's bed and sometimes we laughed hard enough for my mom to wave us away because it disrupted her breathing. we watched the oxygen monitor go up and down, her heartrate spike and plummet. one day i came in when kell was out and dad was getting mom lunch. i lay next to my mom in her hospital bed, making sure not to be pinching any tubes, making sure she was covered in as dignified a fashion as possible. we looked at the catalogs that were stacking up at home; she decorated my apartment for me with valances and furniture i would never pick for myself. the night she got home the oxygen man came to deliver cannisters. we sat around him, listening to intricate directions for cleaning and changing and emergency protocol. i took notes. this was the only time i felt on the verge of breaking whatever was holding me up. i kept my mouth shut and wrote notes in my best handwriting. when he said she couldn't leave the house any time because of the amount of oxygen necessary to keep her comfortable, i started from the beginning and retraced my notes. so she's home. we say i love you on the phone. guestbook || notes || archives || profile || photos || d-land |