Waiting

My dad very rarely calls me, so when I saw his number on my cell phone at 2pm, I had this really bad feeling.  He called to tell me that my mom was in the hospital.  Apparently, she has had a heart murmur that she never told my brother and I about and after feeling faint this morning, she went to the doctor.  The doctor sent her straight to the hospital.  I was able t get very little information from my dad and he was already at home. When I asked him if he was planning on going back to sit with my mom, he said "No, she doesn't want o be fussed over."  So what???  Ignore her!  I do it all the time.  Go anyway.  He's a practical Midwesterner to the core and if you tell him not to come back, he won't.  I called my brother and gave him some instructions.  Seeing as I have spent the most time in hospitals of all of my family, I told him to bring her a bathrobe, comfy socks and a pillow.  He said he would.  I hung up with my brother and called M.  We agreed that we would skip the company Christmas party this weekend and go to my hometown to stay with my parents.  They were scheduled to come to Houston and babysit so we could attend the party, but I am not comfortable with that.  I think my mom is more likely to rest in her own home (she is always trying to clean and do laundry at ours) and seeing the kids will cheer her up a lot. 

When I spoke with my mom she sounded good and apologized, of course, because moms are not supposed to get sick, right?  I asked her questions and got a lot more information from her.  She said that she was going to tell us about the murmur, but just hadn't yet (grrrr) and had been seeing a cardiologist about it.  They told her to come in with any symptoms, so I am really glad that she listened and went in this morning.  They think she has Aortic Stenosis and will be doing a dye test to see if there is any blockage.  Her EKG and Echo came back ok, and they know her general heart function is good.

This is all very scary.  Being 3 hours away makes it worse.  I am so glad that my brother is in town and can help and be my eyes and ears.  My fear is that they won't ask questions, or, if they do, they won't ask the right questions.  I am a big believer in making the doctor interact and tell you what is going on.  My experience with specialists is that they would rather throw a bunch of medical terms at you and leave out the explanation.  As of right now, I am going to stay put unless they find something they don't like in the tests.  Otherwise, we are taking off on Friday afternoon and visiting for the weekend.  My mom sounded really happy about that. 

I've seen others go through this, but watching your own parents get older and dealing with the reality that they won't be around forever is hard.  Intellectually, you know that they can't live forever, but facing the reality of that is much harder than I imagined.