Step Forward, Step Back

Mom's not doing very well today. I guess yesterday was too much for her. Today she's mostly sleeping, being given a lot of morphine, and waiting for the doctor to show up, which, as of this writing, he hasn't yet done. I sat up there for a couple of hours and read the paper and knitted and listened to her heavy breathing, which reminded me horribly of my father's last days. My father died 6 years ago today.

Damn, and this morning I was really hoping to be able to blog about something other than my mother's health. This morning I was in a good mood and planning to get a lot done and thinking Mom was finally getting better and now I'm just tired and cranky and I think I'm going to take a nap. I had a pointless fight with one of my brothers and stomped out of the hospital and still, still, the doctor hasn't called and we still don't have the pathology reports on the cancer for Mom, which means, since we're going into a 4 day holiday weekend, that we won't get them until probably next Wednesday, which means that it's four more days in limbo.

This is the tenth day of this hospitalization; ten days of Mom watch, ten days in which I have accomplished absolutely nothing, and the hold button on my life is beginning to buzz really loudly and turn an alarming shade of red. I love my family but I want a break from them. I have other things I need to be doing, but every time I think I can do something, anything, besides sit at the hospital, it turns out I can't, and the constant low lying thrum of worry is wearing me right down to the bone.