99 Is The New 98

My mother is back in the hospital and I admit to being concerned.

She had a bad weekend and things weren't looking up on Monday, so Tuesday my brother took off from work and came up to check things out. As a result, he ended up again with the nightmarish emergency room detail, and my mother didn't get into her hospital room until after midnight that night.

When I visited her on Wednesday, she mostly seemed all right. But sometime Wednesday night she developed a urinary tract infection (which hadn't shown up on any tests Tuesday), and she became more confused and agitated.

I spent a couple of hours with her yesterday and the antibiotics kicked in and she became more herself (and I got lots of brownie points from the nurses for being such a good daughter). This morning I called and she's still suffering from confusion, and who knows what else.

I spoke to a good friend of mine last night who pointed out my mother has timed this very well; I'm home from South Carolina and Massachusetts and not yet on the road to New Jersey and Texas. Even when she's sick, my mother is an extremely considerate person!

As all of you who have ever had caregiver responsibilities know, it's very draining. I've been trying to get what needs to get done in the mornings, because by the time I get home from visiting my mother, I'm pretty much incapable of anything except watching baseball games (thank you Yankees for winning) and speaking to very close friends, who have lives and problems of their own.

We're coming up on one of the really great three day weekends. The weather here is perfect, glorious blue skies and warm enough temperatures. We haven't had a heavy frost yet and the leaves are changing, so the scenery is just beautiful. I hope all of you who have Columbus Day off (definitely not an international holiday) have a fun filled weekend full of October magic.