Saturday August 5, 2006
A brother-free visit. As soon as I slink into the dark room and see if Mom's awake, something starts beeping. I feel like I've tripped a laser beam alarms guarding the giant 80-pound diamond in one of those Tom Cruise spy movies, back when he was worth watching. It's just her oxygen monitor which seems to be multi-decibels, so yes, she is now awake. There are other alarms going off while we're there, including a CONDITION RED fire alarm one floor below us in the north east quadrant which sets off strobe lights in the hall, as well as a buzzer. It's contained after a few minutes of beeping.

There are other blips and beeps from the machines monitoring her new roommate, "a 'colored person' who's been bleeding heavily, though she should be getting out tomorrow." This is not the alto smoke alarm sound of mom's oxygen monitor, but a high tenor/soprano telegraph dit dit dit noise, either a rapid series of "O's" or "S's" without the interrupting letter. Thank you for noticing the sound of that from bed #2, says the nurse. We don't always hear some of these alarms. (Gee, I feel much better hearing that.)

I bring mom email wishes and an American Greetings floral get well E-card for which I assume has the sound turned off as I've hit "replay" on the downloaded web page on my laptop. (Oh goody, no it doesn't.) And best wishes, and regards given to me during the day to pass to her from a ladies' club friend who's heard through the grapevine of mom's condition.

Mom's best friend, Penny, has been up trying to convince her that "the tube up her nose is her "other best friend, because it's doing its best to get her better." This makes as much sense to us as trying to get a baby to eat telling him theres an airplane or a choo choo train coming straight toward their face to either swallow or allow to induce horrible rhinoplasty.

Thus far, the #1 response when I tell others of mom's condition has been (SURVEY SAYS!) "How can they possibly screw up a colonoscopy?"
#2, "God, your brother sounds like a complete asshole. At least she has you."
#3 "Give her my best wishes, tell her I'm praying for her."
#4 "At least your brother didn't tell her the last thing the guy who died of colon surgery complications had as his last meal."