I was on edge. After two hours of sleep, I woke up feeling I should call my mother. I grabbed my phone and dialed. No one answered, and I remembered she was to see the Dentist that morning to get a tooth fixed where an old filling had fallen out and needed to be refilled. I got up to wait it out, knowing she would call me back once she got home.
I was tired and in pain but had the next few days off to recover from the beginning of the week. I had four days to get my house in order. Rest my body for the coming week, which I would be spending part of sleeping at my mother's apartment after she had her cataract surgery.
At eleven thirty in the morning, my phone rang. I asked my mother how the Dentist had gone. Mom explained he had nicked the inside of her mouth with the drill, and she was bleeding. She said the Dentist had packed her mouth with a tea bag and gauze and sent her home. I asked if she needed to go to the doctor as it was still early in the day, and I had not taken any medications and could still drive. My mother informed me she would nap and was sure it would stop when she woke up.
Time went by, and I didn't think about it again. She is eighty-six. At that age, you should know if you need stitches.
Evening came. I received a weird text from a friend of my mother about how Mom's mouth was still bleeding. At this point, Mom has been bleeding for about twelve hours. I thought it could not be that bad, or her friends of the last forty-six years would have made her see a doctor.
I was wrong.
I called Mom again. By now, I was not able to drive, but if she needed to get stitches, my husband would be more than happy to pick her up and take her. Mom did not sound great on the phone.
I asked where her friend who had driven her home was. Mom informed me she told him she would be okay and she just needed sleep. So he left. He never called me, either.
By this point, I had been awake for two days and had gotten about two hours of sleep. I should have passed out long ago, but my brain wasn't letting me, so I kept playing a game so I could not think too closely about all the bad feelings I was being bombarded with.
Around one thirty in the morning, a massive storm came through where I live. Rain and wind pelted the house. It was so bad I almost turned off my computer, but that would have meant waiting in the dark. Waiting for what? You might be thinking. I have no answer for you. I just knew I could not go to bed yet.
At two in the morning, I heard thunder like I had not heard in nine years. It went on for about five minutes, and it never got any quieter. Then it stopped.
I got out of my chair to grab something to drink, and pain shot up my leg. My first thought was my pain medication had finally worn off and that I should check on Mom.
I ran upstairs to change clothes. I told myself I was overreacting. I knew I wasn't, but I tried hard to convince myself that I would walk into my mother's apartment, and she would tell me I was always overreacting and make fun of me the rest of the next day.
Before we could get to the overreacting part, I had to back my car out of my driveway without hitting my house or the giant maple trees that lined the other side of the driveway. With the car full of raindrops and the streetlight reflecting off of each water droplet, I said a prayer that I would not wake up my husband when I hit the house. Lucky for all of us, I didn't hit anything. I safely made it to the road.
Now, I live in Wisconsin, USA—the state with the loosest drunk driving laws in the world. I was pulling onto the road at two thirty in the morning on a Friday night. The time all the bars close.
Not getting pulled over by the police meant I had to drive slowly. Stop at all the stoplights. Use my blinker if I was turning. The last thing I wanted to do was to explain to a policeman why I was driving at this time of night. With how tired I was, I was going to sound like a mad, drunk lady if I got pulled over.
I made it past one policeman hiding on the side of the road. Luckily, I knew the roads I was driving on like the back of my hand.
I finally arrived at my Mom's apartment building. Lucky for me, I have the key to the underground parking garage and her apartment. If I had not had that key...
I pulled into Mom's parking space and took the elevator to her floor. Opening her door, I flipped on a light and was greeted by my Mom, who called my name weakly. I glanced around the apartment. Everywhere I looked, there were small garbage cans filled with extremely bloody Kleenex.
As I walked back to my mother's bedroom, I could see her trying to sit up. Before my mind could take the horror of that, it did take in all the blood everywhere else. The second bathroom's sink was filled with bloody water from a night shirt mom usually wore. The doors have splatters of blood on the handles from Mom getting more towels and boxes of Kleenex out of them throughout the day.
Then, there was no other place to look but in her bedroom.
My mother is five foot tall and weighs one hundred and twenty pounds. She had propped herself up on pillows and found some old hospital pads to lay on. She was covered in bright red blood. Her bed was covered in bright red blood. When she talked, blood was making a river out of her mouth. When she coughed, large chunks of blood clots shot out and were caught inside the Kleenex that never left her hands.
I told her we had to go to the Emergency Room now. She told me she had to go to the bathroom first.
She had lost so much blood. She was so weak. I ensured she got to the bathroom safely and went into her horror of a bedroom to find some clothes to get on her so we could leave.
Clothes were put on. People fell. Blood flowed like a river and never seemed to stop. Ambulances were called and taken, once again, by my mother to the ER. This time, I wasn't so sure she would make it out.
I had seen my mother right after brain surgery when she was in a coma and had hope. I was with my mother when she broke her arm and leg and had hope. I had seen her break her other leg and had hope. I had seen her minutes after having a significant stroke where she could not talk or use her arms and had hope.
Seeing Mom looking so small and bloody.....after really looking around her apartment before I left for the Hospital, my hope was wavering. She has blood cancer and a tube that drains the fluid from her brain to her stomach. How can her body take much more?
I know I can not.
The ER doctors and nurses did not give up hope. They used tricks that I am still impressed by. They finally got the bleeding to stop and start clotting.
Mom was in the Hospital for three days. They had to give her two pints of blood. She doesn't remember Saturday at all. I wish I could say the same thing.
Mom is back at her apartment and doing great. She needs PT to help her build her strength, but it's Spring, and she is having fun watching what a genuine Spring looks like again.
If I have been quiet, this is one of the many reasons.
I am mentally and physically exhausted.
Right now, I am thankful that Raid: Shadow Legends is addictive. It lets my brain rest and forget the horrors I saw that day until enough time passes, and the sharp edges of those memories start to fade, and the edges soften.
All photos are mine unless otherwise stated.
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