Soon after I returned home from the RWA conference in Orlando, I received a phone call at work from my older brother.
Of course, if you knew my brother, you would immediately understand why those two scenarios alone (1. Calling me, 2. At work) would be cause for concern. Put them together, and one has a recipe for a full-fledged panic attack. All this before he said two words.
His message? “Mom’s not doing well and she won’t go to the doctor. Can you call her? She listens to you.”
If I wasn’t so afraid, I would have choked on a snort of laughter. Mom listen to me? Right.
What you may have surmised from the title of this post is that my mom has emphysema. A few months back, the doctor diagnosed her at the moderate phase of the disease. Depending on whom you ask, this could be stage 2 or 3 (out of 4). You’re probably thinking—shouldn’t her doctor be able to clarify which phase she’s in? Yep, he should. But he merely smiles when she asks. He’s 88 years old.
Back to the story–I hadn’t been home in a while, so I told my brother that I’d make a trip down there (5 hours away) after work and cart her off to the doctor the next day.
His next bombshell? “I think she’s beyond her regular doctor. She needs to go to the hospital.”
