Day 106 - The weekend

So I ended up missing a couple of days. I have a really good excuse, though. And this is a whole lot of physical world stuff, so if you're just looking for an SL pic, scroll to the bottom of the post.

Late Friday night [or early early Saturday morning, if you want to get technical], I was hanging out in world and chatting on plurk and just enjoying my evening when my phone rang. I dread the late night phone call. The phone number wasn't one I recognized but in my area code, which I also dread. It was my aunt, calling to let me know my mom was being taken by ambulance to the ER with chest pains. I threw a quick note on plurk because I truly believe in the power of my friends' prayers & good thoughts [they have worked so many times before!], changed clothes, and took off to the hospital.

By the time I got there, my mom had been checked out, but she was waiting on results. My aunt was there, and then my sister, who I haven't seen or talked to in 2 years, showed up. To say I have a lot of anger towards my sister would be an understatement, but at that moment, I just threw my arms around her because she's my big sister, and I needed her. I always thought if I ran into her at some point, I'd punch her in the face. Glad to see that my anger wasn't as big as I thought.

Anyway, my mom's heart was fine, but her high blood pressure, low potassium, sleep deprivation because of the pain of her arthritis, and her anxiety had all mixed together into a big bad night. The doctor wanted to keep her overnight to get her blood pressure down and potassium up, but because the women in my family are absolutely quirky when it comes to medications, one night had to become two because nothing was quite balancing. I stayed by her side almost the entire time, only coming home once on Saturday night to sleep for a bit [maybe 4 hours in total], and going to my parents' house a couple of times to check on my dad, bring him food, and get things for my mom. At the hospital, the staff was really wonderful, except for one nurse, who just simply used the wrong tone with us and got the rough side of my tongue, and had to apologize to us. But everyone else was really lovely. One of the dietitians took a liking to me and brought me lunch on Sunday just to make sure that I was eating. [I wasn't.] But pretty much the entire time, I stayed by my mom, just to make sure everything was ok and that she didn't need anything.

She was discharged this afternoon, much to our relief. My dad really can't function without her telling him what to do, my mom was really sick of the hospital food & staying in bed all of the time, and I really needed to come home and go to sleep. If I've gotten 8 hours of sleep this weekend, I'd be surprised. I hadn't eaten in about 36 hours, until I was brought dinner tonight. [Which promptly made me feel sick.] I'm so exhausted, I can't sleep. Now ain't that a bitch?

I am, though, going to go attempt sleep. I think the sun is setting quickly in my brain. Maybe after a good night's sleep, I won't feel like a string that's been stretched much too tightly.