So, Tuesday when I was complaining about the new uniforms, I should have just shut my damn mouth because things were about to get much, much worse than ill-fitting scrub tops.
I picked up my phone at the office and when a man said, "Jennie, it's your dad," I thought it was some kind of joke. It wasn't. It really was my dad, calling to tell me that he was in the ER with my mom.
He'd been trying to reach her early Tuesday afternoon because she's stayed home sick from work. When he couldn't, he came home and found her unconscious in the hallway. This was the only information I had when I rushed out of work on Tuesday, headed to the hospital. And just the thought of my dad finding my mom like that still gives me chills.
The drive from my office to Kettering seemed to take hours. Part of me was hoping for the best, another part was preparing for the worst, but mostly I just wanted to pull over and throw up. Dad had told me to drive cautiously to the hospital, but since driving cautiously has never really been my style I flew down the highway and swerved around slower cars like I was in a high-speed chase. Sorry, Dad. You understand.
My dad was the only one in the waiting room when I got to the ER. As soon as he saw me, he started crying and my heart jumped into my throat as I tried to prepare myself for the worst news possible. Luckily (?), she was back in the ER where they were preparing for tests. She was still unconscious and the general consensus at that point was that she'd had a seizure.
Within about an hour, the ER waiting room was full of people. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, and a lot of my mom's coworkers. My mom works at the hospital the ambulance took her to, and there is no doubt in my mind that she got special treatment because of it. My boss, who had seen the state I was in when I left work, brought my entire family pizza. I don't think we'd even realized we were hungry until we smelled it, but I could still only bring myself to eat a few pieces before I started to feel sick to my stomach again.
Let me just say right now that my mom is fine. She was in ICU for observation for two days, and they ran some tests, but long story short (haha) we still don't know what's wrong. And we actually know even less than we thought we did because the EEG showed that she didn't even have a seizure like we'd assumed.
It's hard for me to remember just how scared I was on Tuesday now that I know my mom is OK. We were at the hospital until midnight, not knowing what had happened, not knowing how serious it was, not knowing much of anything really. I have never been so mind-numbingly terrified for such an extended period of time. I don't really know what else to say. I'm slowly gaining perspective, I think, but it's only been a few days. Now we're just hoping that we get some clue as to why this happened, so we can avoid it in the future. Otherwise, whenever someone can't get ahold of my mom, they'll be rushing over to the house or calling every family member in the general vicinity or alerting the fire department/police/FEMA.
Hopefully, Mom will be home and rested by Thanksgiving. We have A LOT to be thankful for. That said, we've all decided that after Grandpa dying last November and this happening this November, next year we're just going straight from October to December. Let's not tempt fate.
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