A Scare at 1:00 A.M.

Last night I went to bed late, about 12:30 P.M. After reading in bed for a while, I dozed off and had just slipped into a nice sleep when the phone rang at 1:00 A.M. I had to move to another room, because it was our land line, not our cell phones.

I didn't get to the phone in time, but I could hear my sister's voice on the answering machine saying something about "Mom" and "hospital." When one's mom is 93 years old, and this call comes at 1:00 A.M., one doesn't think pleasant thoughts. I immediately called my sister back, and found that she was in the car, following an ambulance carrying our mother to the hospital. (They live 150 miles from here.)

Mom had been experiencing chest and left arm pain; she doesn't willingly call doctors, or even complain about pain, so you know it was really bothering her when she called my sister in the wee hours. My sister told her to call 911, and then went there to follow them to the hospital.

That was all I knew. I went back to bed but lay there wide awake, thinking of all the possibilities. Is my mom scared? What are they doing to her? What will it be like if my mom dies? We four siblings will be "orphans." (Our dad died 12 years ago.) If she is really sick and becomes feeble, will we need to put her in a nursing home? She'll hate that. If she is hospitalized for more than a day, I'll need to go visit her.. what shall I pack? When this happened to my dad, I ended up staying in town right through his funeral, and I had not been prepared. (I had to go shopping for funeral clothes.) My son just moved to Korea. How will I get word to him, and how will he feel, being alone so many miles away?

I finally got back to sleep, but woke up much earlier than normal this morning and found a message from my sister: they determined it was not a heart attack. They don't know what is causing the pain. They gave her pain medication and an arm sling and sent her home.

What? It's a relief, but... what was causing the pain? I'm glad that I don't have to live through any of the scenarios that went through my mind in the middle of the night. Some day, yes, I'll have to. But not this time. *whew!* I still have my mom.