Not Out of the Woods

My mom is still in the rehab hospital. She was showing signs of great improvement, and they were planning on sending her home this past Monday. But then over the weekend, her condition took a sharp turn for the worse. Her symptoms returned, and she became tired and weak--she seems to have lost all the strength she has been building up the past few weeks. They have put her back on antibiotics, and say she is now battling both pneumonia and a UTI. It's all very worrisome. Every day I call my dad to get an update on her status, and he tries to paint as positive a picture as he can. Of course, that's not nearly enough to ease my anxious mind. We've been through this before many times, and each time she has recovered. But it's difficult every time, and it never gets any easier. My poor mom. The MS was bad enough, but when all these other complications pile on, it's really heartbreaking.

Night Fishing

While checking out my site-stats a few weeks ago, I noticed that someone had discovered my blog by Googling "night fishing urban dictionary". I'm a big fan of the Urban Dictionary, and find it to be a very useful aid in keeping up with contemporary expressions. And of course, I was quite curious to learn what the kids mean when they say "night fishing." So I checked it out. Jeez, I had no idea! I wouldn't mind waking up to that!

(While at urbandictionary.com, I also learned what a badonkadonk is--oh man, that one is hilarious!)

Blah

I'm sitting here, feeling kinda bored, wondering what I should do with myself, and not really feeling like doing anything. I'd say I'm having a fairly lousy day--spent the whole day bored off my ass at work, then came home wondering what direction my life is headed in, what direction it should be headed in, and just how the hell anyone is able to make such drastic changes to their life when they're 33 years old and no longer have the energy or motivation to make any kind of changes. I guess it's my usual existential alienation, coupled with a few other things. I'm not feeling entirely well, which is a little disconcerting considering how I've been trying to keep myself healthy by going running every other day for the past two weeks. I seem to be acutely sensitive to my physiological condition right now, so even the slightest ailment sends me into a hypochondriacal tailspin. Not sure why this is, but I suspect it's because I'm losing my mind. It has been several weeks since I've had a substantive conversation with anyone, and I think personal interaction helps to keep me sane. So in its absence, well, what can I expect? I think I'm gonna go sit my ass down on my futon, eat a plateful of Trader Joe's Organic Chocolate Chip Cookies (which, by the way, I have decided are the best store-bought cookies I've ever tasted), drink a glass of milk, and watch Teevee until I can smell the stench of my rotting brain. God, what an awful post--I'll be mighty surprised if I don't delete this pretty soon.

Here We Go Again

My mom's back in the hospital. She always seems kinda weary--this is a side-effect of the medication she on to treat the MS symptoms. But on Christmas, in addition to being tired, she complained of back pain as well. It's so difficult to see her trapped in her wheelchair, unable even to shift her body enough to get comfortable. When she's in pain, it's especially heartbreaking. I still don't know how to deal with the sadness and powerlessness I feel while witnessing or even contemplating her suffering. Anyway, at one point she also appeared to have difficulty breathing, which was especially alarming. But after lying down and taking a nap for a while, she seemed improved. On previous occasions, this kind of weariness has led to hospitalizations for pneumonia, so I was quite worried. However, in the next few days it was a relief to hear my dad report that she seemed better than she did on Christmas.

Only it wasn't quite so. On New Year's Day, she was having chest pain, so an ambulance was called. She was diagnosed with pnuemonia again, along with some kind of anemia and sodium issue (I'm not sure here--my dad wasn't clear on the details). After a few days at the hospital, she was moved to a rehab hospital. Hopefully, this transfer was because she was making good progress recovering and not because they wanted to free up the bed. So now she's at the rehab hospital. It's stressful wondering when (or if) she will recover enough to return home. And of course, that gets me wondering about all sorts of unspeakable possibilities which I'd rather not think about. I don't know, that's all I have to say for now.