Well, it wasn't the call... but it wasn't good, either.
Things don't look particularly encouraging. This afternoon, they were talking about my mother's kidney function being slightly better, though still bad. Now, just a bit ago, a nurse called to say that she is being moved to an ICU because she was having trouble breathing. They think she has pneumonia. They're giving her intense oxygen, and antibiotics.
They're also talking dialysis, though, since that would presume she was alive, its not as distressing a thought as it was two days ago.
My daughter's crying in her room, thinking about the times that she didn't spend with my mother because she could be annoying. I told her that this didn't mean she was a bad person - that it was a common feeling of the young -- and the not-so-young -- to the elderly, and that she shouldn't beat herself up for it.
We're pulling her from school tomorrow to go over to the hospital, just in case. About a week ago, she wanted to do an oral history with my mother. Now she's afraid it may be too late. Me, too.
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Update: About 1:30, a doc called from the ICU to tell us that she was sleeping soundly. She's on masked oxygen, and a PICC line, but she's doing fairly okay, all things considered. I believe the phrase they like to use is 'guarded'.
