Just to let some of you know, my mother was admitted to the hospital on Thurs. and has taken a downward turn & is in the Intensive Care Unit. They are trying to stabilize her breathing and blood pressure to operate on pancreatic gall stones, but it is the stones that has caused the breathing and blood pressure issues in the first place....catch 22. I'm sure I sound like I'm rambling, just a weird discovery. I didn't even know anything until yesterday. I had tried to call her Fri. afternoon to see if she needed groceries.....no answer. Figured she just went on her own like she does, trying to beat the rain. I let it go, figuring on going down Sat. just to hang out with her so she could see Zoe. About 10 am I called her to tell her we were on our way....no answer. I knew something was really wrong. For my Mom to ever be awake at 10 am, let alone out somewhere in the pouring rain.....no. I went to her apt. and found her screen door was latched open, which told me there had been an ambulance there. I have a key, so I went in & it looked like she had just stopped what she was doing and left. We went to the hospital to see if she had been admitted & they said, Oh yeah, she's in ICU #1". Yeah, glad they eased me into that one. Apparently, there was some kind of misunderstanding & the hospital thought she had no family or some bullshit. Myself & Rachel were listed as emergency contacts, but since we had just ditched the house phone & went with cells, they didn't have the new phone #'s. Yeah great huh? She had called 911 on Thurs. complaining of abdominal pain, which was diagnosed as pancreatic stones, but the irritation has caused her to take on too much fluids, which caused the respiratory distress and dropped her blood pressure to dangerously low levels. This is why she is in the ICU, they had to sedate her to regulate all this.

Yeah, so much for "quick update" but yeah, needed to ramble. I'm headed back to hospital shortly, and hopefully then I will have more/better news. I'm out.

Marcus 6-21-09