As I mentioned earlier, there’s much to tell about the last few days … and here’s item #2 related to my mom…
So, every few days I pick up the phone and call my mom, right? This time of year, maybe it’s only once a week or so — which is quite a conservative calling pattern, for me — but I try to keep in relatively good touch, especially now that she’s on City Council and has good stories there, and that they’re inching closer to their close date on their townhouse in Hawaii.
Anyway, I wasn’t sure if she was working last Saturday from home or at her H&R Block office, so I called her cell to see if she’d answer (when she’s at the office, she does not). And … my brother answered. That was immediately jarring to me because (1) I didn’t know he was home (not that he clears his schedule with me, mind you), and (2) I didn’t expect him to answer *her* cell phone.
So, I ask him how he’s doing and he tells me he and my dad had taken my mom to the hospital earlier in the day (i.e., to the emergency room), that she hadn’t slept a wink the night before, couldn’t keep anything down (I’ll spare you the details), and was feeling horrid. Turns out she was dehydrated and has gall stones. They gave her an antibiotic and some pain pills, and apparently she was supposed to go to the doctor on Monday and then schedule surgery for Tuesday or Wednesday. That was what George told me, anyway… But at the time, she was (finally) asleep and feeling OK.
I sorta freaked out (thankfully, I was home alone during this phone call so I could freak out without having to explain myself right away), and then ordered her some flowers to be delivered Tuesday and proceeded to fetch Daniel over at his parents’ house (he was helping them install a printer or something).
Fast forward to Monday, when I called Ma Norell to find out how she was doing and if she’d scheduled surgery. To my great surprise, my dad answered (not the surprising part — wait for it, people) and said she wasn’t going to have surgery until after tax season. (Which also probably means she was going to wait until after they go to Hawaii to close on the house, as well.) I sorta panicked … I mean, last I heard, she had opted to stay home for the weekend when her other option had been to stay in the hospital so they could do surgery first thing Monday morning. Not exactly a situation in which I thought a two- or three-month delay was really appropriate, y’know?
My dad said apparently my brother had had a similiar (“THAT’S RIDICULOUS, MOTHER!”) reaction to mine and I had him put my mom on the phone. She said I was being irrational and unnecessarily panicking about something that is quite unthreatening. “I. FEEL. FINE.” she said over and over. As if my worrying was undue or an annoyance. Sorry, everyone, but I *do* worry about my mother.
Anyway. She apparently got her flowers on Tuesday as scheduled, and called me this morning to confess she’d never had anyone send her two dozen roses all at once like that before … and also, that she felt guilty, because I clearly think she’s really sick. I explained that the information I was given Saturday, when I ordered them, was that she WAS really sick.
But the larger point there is that — why is my mother 47 years old and just YESTERDAY got sent two dozen roses for the first time? And why does my mother feel guilty because her daughter sent her flowers? Sounds to me like she needs some flower spoiling. My dad’s bound to thank me for that. hehehe
Also, my uber-point is that my brother and I had the exact same reaction without consulting one another or hearing through the grapevine of one another’s panic … and doesn’t/shouldn’t that mean something? If we both fear our mom isn’t taking care of herself during tax season, might we have a good reason? And if she’s not, do we need to stage a you-need-this-gall-bladder-stone-removal-surgery intervention before she has another “attack”?