If you were raised properly, then you were taught that one doesn't make phone calls before the hour of 9am or after 10pm. Early morning or late night calls, I was told are either, 1. rude or 2. harbingers of death or illness, so you can imagine how my heart started beating faster when my phone rang at 7:30 this morning.
My mother had her knee replaced on the 20th, and things went downhill after the surgery, she had a bad reaction to the morphine and spent 3 days following the surgery very ill. She didn't know what she was saying half the time, and why she was in the hospital, unless one of her wonderful nurses talked her into awareness. It was very scary for me to see my mother like this.
There was talk amongst her doctors, about putting her into the rehab center at the hospital, so that she could be monitored and get a really great kickstart on her physical therapy. I was all for this, anything to help mom, but on Christmas day she went home, and we decided to put our traditional Christmas celebration off until this week.
Monday evening, daddy called me and told me that mom was back in the hospital, that her knee was infected and they didn't know what it was. Oh. Joy. Mother does so love hospitals. That and I had flashbacks of knee replacements past, and their complications.
Dad called me yesterday with an update, the fact that she was responding well to the antibiotics and pain meds, made me feel better and the only reason I didn't go see her yesterday was the fact that I was feverish and muddleheaded. I figured that it wouldn't be a good thing to pass along anymore germs to mother, the knee hurts her enough and I didn't want to add to it with a head cold.
So this morning, I am up and in the back yard having a cigarette (Yes, with a head cold. I know. I know.) and the phone rings...not my cell, but the house phone. No one but family has the house phone number and it was 7:30am! I dashed into the house, heart pounding and answer.
On the other end were the dulcet, cheerful, well rested tones of my mother!
"Hi honey, what are you doing?" she asked.
"Mom! I almost had a heart attack! It's 7:30!" I panted in reply.
"Oh, I'm sorry!"
"No,mom. It's okay, I'm so happy to hear your voice! You sound so wonderful!"
And she did sound wonderful. Apparently they've found a good combination of pain meds for her (she has reactions to certain things) and she slept "like a baby". The infection appears to be clearing up as well. They are going to keep her in the hospital for another day at least, but it's looking good. My heart is also beating normally again.
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