QUANDARY

Four to five weeks rehab and physio is what the experts at Laurel Lake Nursing Home recommend. I don't know how I feel. Glory oh glory, Mama lives! Yes, for sure. But. Well. It's hard to get a bead on The Big Picture because the issues change so from day to day that just when you think you've sorted the solution, you have to re-think it all. Last Saturday for instance I was told by a good friend of Peg's that she was "in the car", "on her way" from Ohio, that she had "no commitments until June". Oh thank you God, think I, she is coming, Peg loves her, she will be here, I can get home. Then yesterday evening, which is what I think set me off, I get an email from same saying hm, gosh, should I come while Peg's in rehab or after she gets out and gee I can only stay a week because I have so much going on and...why do people do this?? Say what you mean or don't say it! If you want to help, help, by all means, and I will love you, but please, don't offer and not mean it. Having said that, I'm now wondering how many people I've let down over the years by offering to help but secretly hoping they don't call. But no, I would go, if I've offered. The trick is to learn to shut up I guess.

_________________

STAFF ON CALL:

Bonnie, who efficiently, capably and cheerfully packed Peg up and got her moved over into Laurel Lake. Much better than I could have, especially the cheerfully part. 

_________________

I arranged for Dawn--the former holder of the Bonnie position here but who had to move on a year ago because Peg does not care to be told what to do and decided that labeling and dating plastic containers full of leftovers in the fridge constitutes treason and is a good reason to fire someone-- came here to Odd-sit  for 90 minutes while Wendy and I nipped over October Mountain to the nursing home with: Peg's fixodent; a laundry basket with her name magic markered on the rim; a print-out of the words "FAMILY WILL DO LAUNDRY" for Peg's closet door; the NY Times Review of Books; hangers; a letter from a fan; an email from her grandson; and 3 rhubarb muffins I'd made earlier but could have been cooked about three minutes less.

Peg was sleeping. We woke her and helped her eat some soup. She has a double room but she's got the window bed and all her lovely flowers arranged along it and there's a bird feeder right outside, not that she'll look at it. Turner Movie Classics was on, "Goodbye Mr. Chips". She says she feels fine but her legs hurt. They got her up and walking but she only made it halfway across the room. She told me about the Russian orderly again at BMC who'd cried when she told him she'd read not only "Heart Of A Dog" but "The Master and Margherita" and then we left. Made Dawn stay for a glass of wine when we got back. She said when she'd been in to visit Peg the day before at Berkshire Medical, Peg was naked from the waist down, they'd just left her that way. Dawn got a blanket onto her. Jesus.

_________________

Four to five weeks in rehab. Dear oh dear. Not sure where or how I fit into this. How can I possibly stay here four to five weeks. If I had nothing else to do and no husband or son (or dog), well, yes. Do-able. But I do.  And more than that, although this sounds fairly terrible to say, I don't feel able to cope with my father on my own for that length of time. I'm already getting snappy. "Get the phone! Get the phone!" he cries and I say, "Yes, Daddy, I HEAR THE PHONE. I am standing here NEXT to it.  You can SEE me answering it!"and on and on and on and on and "When is Mama coming home?"every other second.  He's now taken to calling me "Peggy". Why do I get mad at him just because he doesn't understand. The poor man. I get mad at him because I am impatient and intolerant and oh, I don't know, I can't think of words anymore. 

_________________

HIGHLIGHTS:

- Two more Blue Books done, AND the Great Books of the Western World re-packed into two boxes instead of the one no one could move without a forklift, sealed and addressed and ready for Postman Pat.

- Letting Wendy, here to help, make me a ham and cheese sandwich when I still hadn't eaten by 3:30 PM and was feeling distinctly faint, so much so that I had to lie down---and noticing the green mold on the bread before I took a bite. Which she in fact hadn't and I am suggesting a trip to her opticians when she gets back to Vermont.

_________________

10:00 PM. The Caregivers Manual, at least the edition I have, suggests turning my phone off and shutting my door and taking a pill so am off now to do this, oh, and will be putting on the noise machine--Quick Sleep (an App)--- "Rainshower" and "Fountain", top volume,  being my preferred Sounds to Drift Off To although have just spent ten minutes now trying to find the Intensely Irritating In The Extreme "Grasshoppers" and "Cat Purring" windows to turn OFF, having inadvertently tapped them ON while trying to find the exact name of this App for you. 

EMOTIONS RUNNING HIGH

WENDY has arrived from Vermont with her labradoodle named Solo, pronounced SooLoo, which connoisseurs of Norwegian soft drinks will recognize as a famous brand orange soda. I have put her (Wendy, not Solo) to work immediately on The Blue Books, trimming captions and passing them to me like a trained surgical nurse when I command, with outstretched hand, "A Young Kate Smith Does the Charleston" or "Grandson Alex plays the drums at the Albert Hall 1998" and so on. We were both excited to discover that one of the recipient's of a Blue Book is none other than a relative named Ruth Fisher--enabling us to get rid of at least one of Peg's photocopies of "A Fisher" (the mink-like critter), legitimately. 
_________________
HOSPITAL NEWS:

Mama is being released from the hospital tomorrow at 1 PM to go by ambulance to Laurel Lake "Kindred" Nursing Home in Lee. The idea is she's there for 1- 3 weeks getting rehab. She is weak and needs to be able to walk as well as she did before the heart attack and bleeding business. I have arranged for Bonnie to go into the hospital tomorrow at noon to pack up Peg's room and all the so-far-thirteen floral tributes and make sure all her things travel with her and don't get pitched, like a lot of stuff did just coming down the hall twenty yards from the ICU. (Whose lipstick did they think it was? Whose eyedrops, that said Margaret Lynch on them? Whose chapstick, mentholatum, and basket of chocolates?? Gone.) I am feeling even so slightly guilty sending Bonnie to do this instead of going myself but will try and talk myself out of it. There's so much I need to do here. However. This morning I got the neat idea of putting surgical gloves on the bottoms of all the loose flowers Peg received in vases, dropping in some crushed ice from the machine, tying a thumb to a pinky, and transporting them that way over to Lee. I'd love to try it. It appeals to the old prop girl in me. I'd also love to think I drove all the way in there in order to provide reassurance and daughterly comfort. Anyway am sending Bonnie--with strict instructions on how to deal with the flowers. Will wait by the phone anxiously.
_________________
STAFF ON CALL:

OUTSIDE BOB, who scanned scripts, inside.
DOMINICK, who helped me get Odd into his, Dominick's, Subaru Forester and take Odd in to visit Peg. I have to pack a bag now for when Odd goes anywhere, with clean clothes, Depends, Atavan (like Xanax) and Pro-Air inhaler (and surgical gloves).
________________
A feeling of doom has come over me today that I can't shake. One of those days where if anyone said oh by the way, in exactly seven point thirty seven minutes could you please cry copiously for me--you'd say sure thing! I got a good unbroken night's sleep thanks to Zopiclone and am not unduly worried about my possible brain tumour any longer and things seem more than stable with Peg indeed on the up and up, am progressing on Blue Books, website, eBay--oh! the woman who wanted to send the brooch back because I'd weighed it on a normal scale and not a jeweler's one? Changed her mind. Keeping it after all. So good news there too, in fact pretty decent news all round including the fact that the needlenose-peabrain collie has so far not chosen to pee on the laundry room floor today. But if Wendy hadn't been here I wouldn't have made it through the cod and new potatoes dinner. Actually I wouldn't have even made the cod and new potatoes dinner, I would have had popcorn.

Odd appeared in the kitchen mid dinner prep, in tears, and without his walker. Sobbing, unable to control himself. "Where is Peggy?" he asked. And we went through the whole story for about the fifth time today. THAT'S WHAT'S SO EXHAUSTING.
_________
11:30 PM. Meltdown. I can't get a grip. 

RAIN

Rain turning to snow tonight they say, 2 -3 inches. Lest you imagine I have begun taking an unseemly interest in the Weather Channel, understand that my only concern is the direction in which to point Outside Bob now that he's finished all the winter inside jobs. The drive needs sweeping desperately--all the grit the snow plows have sprayed down since October, and this is a good week's work because it's a ten-minute walk out to the road--but no going outside today. So I have him back scanning Ethel and Albert scripts. We're down to the last box. A week ago I would have considered this the best possible news ever but now all I want to hear is that Peg is coming home. 

I walk around her room, picking stuff up, looking at it (pitching it), tidying, straightening--thinking maybe somehow if I rearrange everything and sort and get rid of all the crap, maybe this will guarantee that she will make it, she will come home again, if only to get mad at me for rearranging her stuff. At the moment she is obsessing over losing or being unable to lay her hands on something that Tom, a fan, once wrote her, and although I reassure her that it is definitely here somewhere, I am not 100 % sure I didn't pitch it in a pique one night, since she tends to listen to Tom or her other fan Steve more than she does me. Which on occasion annoys me. Such as when she calls Steve, say, in Florida, when the water pump breaks, instead of the plumber.

Anyhow I get in there today (hospital) and as I'm walking into Room 432  a male nurse says "I bet you're excited she's coming home today!" and I think, ah, I must have the wrong room, but no, seems that's the plan. Well, not for me it isn't. I mean, yes, I want her home, but please, internal bleeding and major heart attack? Having her sitting at the butcher block with just me in attendance making her peanut butter and mayo sandwiches with the crusts cut off is not exactly how I see it, not just yet. I'm too scared. All the tubes are out of her now and they removed the Central Line while I was sitting there  (and the Northern and the Bakerloo) but the idea of sole responsibility is daunting. Only two days ago this woman was  grey in the face, eyes rolling back, fighting for breath, and now she's tucking into beef and barley soup and a plate of disgusting turkey with gravy that looked like that Mucillage glue we had in kindergarten, followed by a large piece of salted almond Easter bunny chocolate. My mother looks and sounds absolutely like her old self. Incredible. But I want them to get her up and walking again before they give her to me. 

I put in a call to her primary care doctor, Paula Aucoin, to get the whole picture, and she's not called me back yet but how I read it is this: they're just going to send her home and cross their fingers and hope she's ok. Which I do get, because what else can they do. So far no more bleeding. But, has it stopped forever or just temporary?  Heart rhythms normal, all vitals back to normal. For the moment. BUT. No heart surgery on the cards or anything up the jacksy (quaint Brit term) again because they can't chance knocking her out or nicking an interior wall. 

So it seems, after some rehab either in the hospital or Laurel Lake Nursing Home, Odd's old haunt, she's coming home. Which is indeed a result, and the one we want, to be sure. It does mean also that I have to go around de-Astrid-ing the place (funny how fast you can put your stamp on things when you think your mother's never coming home again), putting things back to the way she likes them, like the lingonberries and strawberry jam out of the fridge and back on the shelf near the island where she can reach them (even with mold on them) and--oh God I don't know. I'm on such an emotional roller coaster. Really really loving the fact that the counter top microwave died (as opposed to the in-built stove one) so I have room over there to prep meals, but already annoyed knowing that Peg, once home, when my back is turned, is going to buy another microwave the size of a Honda to fuck up the counterspace. The mother-daughter relationship is indeed complicated.
__________________
STAFF ON CALL:

Bonnie, doing the usual million things including cleaning the laundry room carpet where the dog peed about 10 gallons worth because it won't go out in the rain. Plus she's a notary (Bonnie, not the dog), how convenient is this, so we were able to stamp and send Odd's Life certificate back to Norway to prove he's still on this planet (more or less) so they don't stop his pension like they did last year because none of us realized that if we'd turned over the their letter we would have seen the English translation, instead of just pitching the letter in the garbage thinking "this can't be important, it's in Norwegian!"

Outside Bob, as I said, scanning and sweeping and Odd duty.
__________________
HIGHS:
PriceChopper, and getting via UPS a big box from J Crew from Karen Solloway in England in which I found a fantastic big chunky trendy necklace and also some earrings. JUST FOR ME. Love them. Love her. Not that Price Chopper wasn't fun, too. 

David Jenkins, stage designer old friend who conveniently lives up the road, bringing over pizza and salad for dinner.  Odd ate his pizza but left his kale salad, possibly thinking it was crepe paper.
___________________
LOWS:
I have a throbbing and occasionally stabbing pain on that bone behind your ear (skull?), my left one (ear not skull), and have had it since yesterday, bad enough to keep me awake  all night, and am convinced I have a brain tumor.

MOVING DAY

Peg has been moved from the ICU into a regular room. A good sign but only a small step. Spoke to her an hour ago, she now has a phone by her bed. "How are you?" "Fine but the service here is terrible." She told me she'd had a heart attack about 6 times and that she had run into either a Russian doctor or nurse or orderly, didn't get this straight--someone she'd met at some earlier hospital visit--who'd nearly wept when she said one of her favourite books was Mikhail Bulgakov's "Heart of a Dog". Seems he wept all over again when she reminded him. 

She was perky and bright and lively and very with it this morning, Annie and I saw her in the ICU before she'd been moved. We presented her with a BLUE BOOK, somewhat cautiously, not at all sure if her reaction would be positive or pissed off to find we'd changed the running order (not that there was one) or God forbid not put the pic of the fisher next to the cute Whitney Darrow Jr cartoon or...but she was over the moon. Thank you God. A) for keeping her alive to see a BLUE BOOK finished; and B) for allowing us to score points as Great, Clever, Kind and Thoughtful Daughters and Friends of Daughters. 

Of course, what she didn't see, was BLUE BOOK #2, which I have prepared tonight, and which will go off to journalist friend and Peg fan James Lileks of the Minneapolis Star Tribune tomorrow--and the captions for it I have just finished printing off, cutting, and glueing on. Most pages are self-explanatory but there are the odd pics that might be confusing to the non-family member on their own (or even to a family member), hence the addition of "Cousin Junior (Harry Sorenson) as a little boy" and "Cousin Jr now grown up and a Hells Angel" underneath. I am also happy to report that Lileks will be the happy recipient of not 1 but 6 pages inserted throughout his book featuring fishers, beginning with "A Fisher" and ending with "You can never look at too many fishers, is my feeling".
___________________
I have answered 63 emails or messages from Peg friends and fans tonight. 
___________________
STAFF ON CALL:
Outside Bob: finished painting office and answered 3,000 phone calls while I was at the hospital.
___________________
Odd spoke to Peg today and I know that pleased him. Still, I catch him red-eyed, but can't tell what precisely may have brought it on, is it thinking about all Peg's going through, thinking about what if she dies and he never sees her again, or just plain wondering where she is because she's not on the couch or in the kitchen? Anyhow he went in for a nap at 4:30 and sat up at 9 when I went in to not-so-quietly find the paper cutter by the side of Peg's desk and crashed into the card table. I told him I'd spoken to Mama and she sounded good. He asked when she was coming home. I asked if he wanted some dinner. He asked what time it was and leaned down to velcro his shoes on. So I headed out here and started heating soup and leftover meatloaf and no sign, he's gone back to bed. The Hospice nurse today said give him an Atavan every night before he goes to bed to settle him, which hasn't happened, ditto nebulizer. I can look forward to an anxious unable to breath but hungry father at perhaps, what, 3 AM?

I have left a banana and 3 pecan sandies on a plate and a note. Ever hopeful. And that he doesn't fall or choke while I'm asleep.
___________________
10:45 PM Peg just rang confused by all the different people coming into the room (nurses), mostly worried that they are giving her the wrong medication, that she is "not getting the alpurinol (sp?), the important one" she takes at night. I'll look into this tomorrow. I have never seen her take a pill at night.
__________________
Am thinking I'm going to scoot up to bed before another parent needs me. Terrible, but that's the way it is.

ANNIE AND JEN DAY

Working backwards, Annie and I have spent the past six hours--not counting a break for not-very-good-pizza--working on Peg's Blue Book Project. What is her Blue Book Project? I used to describe it over the past three years it's been going on variously as "stupid", "a complete waste of time and money!", and "like the Blair Witch Project but scarier". What Peg first of all did was tear apart two or three meticulously kept scrapbooks of her career. You can imagine how much this pleased me, me who's trying to collate stuff for her website. She then made everyone, mostly Bonnie, lug everything--100 pages? 200?--to Staples to get color copies scanned, for nine million dollars. The rest she did here with our own printer. When I say "she", I mean Bonnie, Terri, anyone who is passing who knows how to work the printer. I think she had Lynette the woman who comes to do their feet pitching in too. Peg spends more on printer ink in one month than Kinko does all year. She wanted at least 25 copies of everything, old photos, new photos, old clippings, new clippings, reviews, predominantly stuff from her career. She then bought five hundred thousand plastic sleeves, inserted every single copy into its own sleeve, bought 30 plastic loose leaf binders, most of them blue, the idea being to fill the books with all this stuff all about her for her fans. She then got the idea of interspersing the publicity material with cartoons from the New Yorker, interesting articles, and an assortment of strange items such as a colored photo somone printed for her off the net of a fisher, which is a mink like animal (50 copies) and an 8 X 10 of the guy in Japan she's never met who uses her radio shows to teach English adult education classes in Hiroshima (67 copies). 

I have no trouble whatsoever with the thought behind this project. The problem has been that she has taken originals from the albums and not replaced them, cut up original photos if they didn't fit or to make a collage (losing whatever was on the back), and then been totally utterly and completely incapable of organizing the actual filling of these books but would not let anyone help. Boxes and boxes and boxes have gone back and forth from the kitchen to Peg's quarters, back and forth and back and forth for more than two years--all to no avail. The kitchen gets covered with piles for about a week, Peg can't get at it, so treks it all back to her office, about 20 trips all piled on her walker. I have offered to help on about 300 occasions. 

So tonight was Blue Book Night. With Peg in the ICU I had free rein to lug it ALL out here, Annie and I, aka The A Team, went to work and presto, we nailed the suckers. 12 books, in beautiful chronological order, not counting the fisher or Kyle in Japan or some old pics of the garage from the place I grew up in Fairfield. We are going to take a complete one in to Peg tomorrow. She will be thrilled. Is the general hope. The hitch now is finding out where all these books need to be sent, I know for a fact three of the fans have died (just waiting for their books).
__________________
STAFF ON CALL:

Bonnie, who helped us get Odd in to Pittsfield to go visit Peg. We got him into Annie's car, plus wheelchair. Bonnie followed in her car and brought Odd home afterwards, after calling Pete from the gas station to meet them at the house and help lift Odd out. (Pete is married to a Hospice nurse, Denise, who was the bartender as it happened at my wedding. They race motorcycles and sidecars, where she hangs out with her head practically on the road, that kind).
___________________
Jennifer, a sort of adopted daughter (Peg's not mine) drove over to the hospital from Boston and she visited with Peg most of the day. It was wonderful to have her support and of course Annie's.

Latest medical news: a little more bleeding today but Peg is stable. She has apparently suffered a massive heart attack, even though she didn't feel it. But they can't dose her with heparin (blood thinner) while she's still bleeding. So they may go up there again to see what's what. Meanwhile, they couldn't get a decent vein (did I write all this already, I worry I may have, too bad) so they went into the jugular and I had to give permission and my poor Mama has so many tubes sticking out of her--oh God.

She is nevertheless chipper. I have told her everything the doctor said. Will she process it? No idea.

I told Odd today that unless the bleeding stopped or they fixed it--that Mama may not be coming home. He cried, we hugged. Bonnie arrived, Odd had breakfast. Half an hour later I said okay, you ready, let's go to the hospital. 

"Hospital?" he said. "To see Peg. Yes." "Oh," he says. "When's she coming home?"

It's hard enough telling him she may not, ONCE. 

Bed. Knackered. Annie telling me to stop. 

WISHING I HAD SIBLINGS OR A PERSONAL ASSISTANT ON CALL 24 HRS A DAY

Here's what's proving difficult, trying to keep Daddy calm and make him think all is well, that Peg will be OK when mostly I want to weep. First of all I'm grateful for him even remembering that Peg is IN the hospital, rather than say the kitchen or napping somewhere. There is always a slight look of confusion when I say, "I just spoke to the nurse, Mama's doing fine!" before it hits him, then his love for her kicks in and his eyes fill and he tries not to cry in front of me, keeps apologizing. This is a man who used to back the car out and get the engine warmed up for her then stand in the drive and wave and wave and wave as if Peg's sailing away forever to the New World when she's only off in the Subaru to Price Chopper or Tina the Hairdresser's. He had a violent coughing/choking fit during "How To Marry A Millionaire" about 8 PM. I held him and patted him thinking right, now I get to call an ambulance two days running--but got him calmer and wiped him off then got an Atavan down him (sort of a tranquilizer that Hospice provides---I'll be hitting the bag of 'em shortly with a soup spoon) and this had the desired effect.

I don't know if Peg will be OK, to tell you the truth. She was in good spirits when I got there today at 11. Had made her some asparagus soup and chicken salad sandwich, and brought it all to her to find out she wasn't allowed any solid food yet, just some consommé. She took two sips then choked, as usual. Next thing is she can't breathe and in come the machines and the doctors and the nurses and: fluid in lungs. So she got some Lasix and then something to make her heart not race. And twenty minutes later she was feeling more like herself but tired and tearful and humiliated by being naked in front of male doctors and having her bum wiped. I sat holding her hand for a few hours.

But then I had to come home because Odd would be here on his own after 5, and that can't be. And I didn't want to leave Mama. And that made me sad. Makes me sad. And now Odd is in bed and the doctor called saying they have to put a line in her jugular because her wrist veins are too small and telling me all the things that can go wrong and I KNOW they have to say this but she'll be scared and I want to be there.

Anyhow. Bollocks. Two sick parents in their nineties. There are worse things, right? Can't think of one off hand but am sure there are some. I have fed the dog and given Daddy Carbonader Kaker (hamburgers and onions Norwegian style) for dinner and made a few hundred calls and am happy because my lovely Annie is going to come up from CT tomorrow to spend the night and stay with Odd if I need to be with Peg. 
_______________
STAFF ON CALL:

Bonnie, who did 5 loads of Peg clothes and cleaned her "area"spic and span and hung up all her stuff so the room now looks halfway habitable. I was at first hoping Peg would even notice it. Now I'm hoping she lives to notice it.  Actually I don't give a fuck whether she notices it, I just want her to be here and well again and not have 300 tubes and needles stuck into her. 
________________
Some jerk woman who bought a gold brooch with semi-precious stones from me on eBay is giving me a hard time because seems I weighed it with a regular scale and not a jewelers one and seems it's only 4 oz not 6 so she wants $25 back. I hate this woman. 
_______________
Am starting to miss the Weather Channel at top volume.
_______________
12:20 AM Update: just got the news that "the line" went in ok although Peg was anxious about it, and that she is now sleeping soundly---when Odd appears in the den gasping for breath. Another attack. Atavan, Maalox, Nebulizer, Oxygen. Can do no more. He's in distress, still. Have put him back in bed and will stay up until he's breathing normally. Or until I can't stand it anymore and go to bed.

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.