ICU

...is of course short for Intensive Care Unit, which is where Peg is tonight. I've been there all day with her but am now home with Odd, have fixed him some dinner and he is watching Judy Garland in "Summer Stock" and asking "How is Peggy doing?" every time I go through the room. And I answer that she is fine. I don't know this, for sure, but he's needs to think this.

So, very briefly, we had a major rectal hemorraging episode this morning at 8 AM in my favorite room, the downstairs toilet. Bright red blood everywhere. I came running when she called. Got her shoes and socks off, trousers, cut off her Depends, cleaned the floor, and made her stay there sitting on the loo while I called Hospice, then her doctor, and finally an ambulance after it was decided she needed to get to the ER and I worried about her passing out next to me, or worse, while I was driving (plus, must admit, was thinking of the white leather upholstery in the borrowed Saab). Hair and make-up and wardrobe (me), then more cleaning, then, kneeling down in the loo, got Peg dressed.

Ambulance lights are hard to drive behind. Felt like any second I was going to have one of those fits you read about that some kids had playing Nintendo. I finally had to pull over and wait a bit.

Peg, once in the ER, was being readied to be wheeled up for a scan when they decided to give her some blood, and platelets, plus saline, and she became hot and itchy. Nurse injected some Benadryl. Within seconds the discomfort started, followed by hyperventilating, eyes rolling back, head lolling. I leapt up. "I feel terrible," she says. "I think I'm dying." I told her not to be silly, she had a phone interview to give to Sirius XM radio this weekend. Suddenly everything started beeping and medical staff race in and start cutting her clothes off but I stopped them from cutting her $500 mastectomy bra in half (and her sweater she likes, knew she'd be furious). 

They wheeled her frantically into Trauma next door where about 12 more staff get in on the act. I sat in the cubicle, now empty of Mama, and folded her clothes and bloody socks and shook the dead flakes of skin from her legwarmers. Eyes lit on the waste bin and what I took for a blood soaked towel and my eyes filled but it turned out to be only a piece of her  red turtleneck with the scottie dogs on it they'd cut off. I honestly thought that was it. That she was dying. The moment had come. Sat there a second digesting this. Nurse Lisa gave me a local cell so I wasn't calling Becket via England. Called Bonnie. Called Tory. Texted Terri, today's STAFF ON CALL because I didn't want Odd hearing the news  and getting upset without me being there. 

But she made it. Peg hasn't made it to 97 for nothing. She's a fighter, we all know that. She revived without intubation or adrenaline. That's my girl.  "Why, shame on you!" she kidded  the nurse who'd given her the Benadryl. Did we know she was allergic? Now we do.

So I wait. The usual. Bonnie and her husband arrived to keep me company, also Tory with fruit salad. Peg went into the ICU at about 3PM after having a scan. She is "stabilized". I stayed until 4:30.  Doctor rang me here as I walked in the door. They have found WHERE it's bleeding but not WHY. That's tomorrow, a half-colonoscopy so tonight she's on laxatives. I feel terribly sorry for her. And sorry that I yelled at her last night. Of course. That will pass, of course. But for the moment I feel badly.

That might be about it for Today's Highlights. Stopped at Price Chopper on the way home in the peeing rain, for a roast chicken for Daddy, pineapple, and a bottle of New Zealand red. Gave him two small glasses. 

Hospice, bless them, came here to see Daddy while I was at Berkshire Medical and then came to the hospital to check on Peg after I left.

I have an almost insatiable thirst tonight--for water, not wine--and can't seem to wash my hands enough.