Take My Breath Away....

I get up at 5am. My oldest has to be at school by 7am(ish). Since the hubby isn't here (business travel), I have to take my oldest to school (which the hubby usually does). Instead of coffee, I always grab a Sundrop. For those of you not familiar with my vice of choice, it has more caffeine than a cup of coffee or tea. It will most definitely get you kick-started in the mornings. Oh noooo, not this morning. I grab a caffeine free Pepsi. I sat here for a good 3o minutes, half asleep wondering why I couldn't get going like usual. Duhhhhh.....

I get the oldest off to school. While out 'n' about, the younger two and I stop at Wal-Greens. Grandmama wants one of those "As Seen on TV" can openers. You know, the kind that 'walk' around the top of a can. Her hands are not very strong anymore and it hurts her to try to use the can opener she has. I tried to talk her into something else that would probably work better and last longer but Grandmama has her mind set on it. Wal-Greens didn't have it. Wal-Mart doesn't have it (I checked yesterday). We were followed around the store by the manager. I guess my two school-uniformed kids and me looking bummy just set off red flags for him. Who knows. I would never steal, my conscience wouldn't allow it but he doesn't know me and I guess he thought differently.

Anyway, we finally came home to wait until time to take the younger two to school. I already had a message on the answering machine. Before I listened to it, I checked the caller ID. Finding out that it had come from the nursing home, I started my way into a panic. I listened to the message which only said, "call us back". It just took my breath away. It did more to jump start me than any can of Sundrop ever could. They had called yesterday to tell me that dad had had a coughing episode so they were putting him on a nebulizer. It was the 2nd episode in less than a week. The first time, a chest x-ray was taken but it came back negative for pneumonia (sp?). My sister, mom and I talked about it and we think that he may be losing his ability to swallow. When they called and just left that "call us back" message, I just knew something horrible had happened. (If he loses his ability to swallow, we'll be faced with the question of putting in a feeding tube.)

As it turned out, he only had a skin tear on his left leg. They were using the lift (rather than his pants pockets!), he stiffened, reared back and his leg bumped against the lift, scratching him. A little clear tape over the scratch and he'll be on his way.

I'm breathing easier again for the moment. I'm trying to hold back my anxiety on when the next call will come in and what that call will be.

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