Driving back from Colorado, my cell phone rang. It was my brother, calling to say “Mom’s in the hospital; you should call her.” Since it was one in the morning local time, making it eleven in Portland, I decided to wait and call the next day.

I arrived at my computer after a break to see an IM from Jay, “Mom’s home now.” So I didn’t call. My mom and I almost never speak on the phone. We’re probably the most non-phone-talking mother/daughter team in the world. We can literally go years without speaking on the phone. Weird, huh? It’s not like we don’t adore each other, we’re just not phone folks.

Anyway, today Jay IMed me here at work saying ‘mom’s expected to be bed-ridden until January, you should call her’.

January? WTF? So naturally I stepped outside and called her.

She’s got the same thing Josh had: a viral infection in the fluid sac around her heart: a pericardial effusion. She said that quite recently she was so weak and oxygen-starved she was unable to both walk across a room and speak a sentence at the same time. She said she couldn’t inhale properly, the sac had swollen so much it was putting pressure on her lungs. She was unbearably weak. Now they’re wanting to have her in for an evaluation to see if she’ll be able to go back to work after the first of the year.

She sounds exhausted.

My beloved aunt Sue is there with her, to be her legs. I told mom I’d call them both back after work.

Josh, I’ve heard, is back in the hospital with his illness, or was again recently. Hope he’s all right too. Damn viruses.
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