Emergency

No no, don’t worry, I was just visiting a friend and saw ER tonight. She’s also a big ER fan but watches it at home and not with a bunch of people like I do. In the Netherlands they are a bit behind with the series, but not that much, just a year and a half. It’s funny to see ER being subtitled. All the medical terms in Latin, and the names of all the medications, I normally take for granted. But they make much more sense when you read them spelled out on the screen.

I also learned some things because they just happened with my mother a couple of days ago. Like the English acronym for oxygen saturation in blood. I immediately forgot that term, but I know now its value should be above the 90s. My mother had often just 80 or so.

My mother is doing much, much better physically. Mentally she’s not so well, maybe her brain was too long deprived of oxygen, because she has more memory problems than before. Every time I visit her she thinks I’m leaving the next day for Montréal, and she also doesn’t remember who visited her the previous day. Not good. She is off the oxygen tube, and basically she’s now occupying a hospital bed waiting until there is room in a nursing home where she can get the care she needs. Her current nursing home is just too understaffed to be up to that task.

I’ve mixed feelings, on one hand I hope she’ll die soon, because she really doesn’t have much to live for. But I also think that is a selfish thought because it would be so convenient for me if she dies when I’m here. Confusing.
My sister jokes that she’ll get worse again the day before I leave, just so I will extend my visit. I hope not, I miss Montréal, Alison and the dogs.