Got called to the hospital at 1:00pm - my mom this time. Difficulty breathing, non-responsive. I headed east since the ambulance hadn't arrived at the home yet but they'd call as soon as they knew where they were taking her. They called about 15 minutes later and said Scarborough General. Traffic from the west end was brutal - it took me over an hour to get there. When I went into the emergency and stood lost for a minute, I had a surreal moment - the wing is named after my brother-in-law. For a brief second, I thought I was losing it. (my sister later told me, yeah, Randall had the new wing built).

An amazing paramedic (didn't get his name, I should have) who was waiting with another patient asked if he could help me. I gave him my mom's name and he went looking for her. He looked all over emergency then came back and said she wasn't there but he'd call in to find out if anyone had picked her up and where they'd gone. Honestly, it has been my experience that the paramedics are the most compassionate, helpful people when you're in the hospital. He came back a few minutes later and told me someone had taken a resident from her nursing home to Centenary. As I sprinted back to the parking garage, I called Centenary (in my phone book since my dad's chemo there) and they confirmed that she had just been brought into emergency.
When I got there, I was relieved to see that she had good colour behind the oxygen mask. She was unconscious and struggling to breath though and the duty nurse was too busy to come talk right away. While Scarborough General had been fairly quiet, Centenary's emergency was full.
Finally she came over and explained that the nursing home said she had aspirated some food. No big surprise considering her parkinsons and the low level of care provided by nursing homes. The big concern now was rotting food in her lungs and the subsequent infection and/or pneumonia.
I had called my sister at the cottage and told her not to bother coming home right now. She had driven up to Muskoka last night, hitting Vaughan just about the same time as the tornado. She was already a ball of stress and there was nothing she could accomplish by jumping into her car and fighting cottage traffic for 3 hours just to watch my mom gulp air.
Okay, I'm not going to lie. The acute care wing was nasty. It smelled like poo and decay and there was some crazy guy who was clearly well known to the staff. He had driven himself in, and was claiming he didn't know who he was and that he was having hallucinations. He stared at me the entire time I was there - 6 hours. I was too worried about my mom to really notice but every once in awhile, as I got up to adjust her pillow or IV, I'd catch a glimpse of his glowering, mouth-breathing stare as he sat hunched, gripping the sides of his stretcher. It certainly added to my level of agitation. The staff just kept saying to him, " and you had your last drink when?" and he would say, "I haven't had a drink for 3 years.....okay, well I had one 3 weeks ago... no, it might have a been a few days ago." (rule of threes? Sooo, three hours? Three minutes??). I just couldn't deal, you know? So after I was sure my mom was living, I got back in my car and drove away. I just drove around the block - 401 to Markham south, east on Ellesmere to Neilson and back into another parking spot - but it made me feel better, more in control. I went back to the chair in Acute Care, pulled it close enough to hold my mom's hand in one of mine and got Explore magazine out of my purse to read with the other hand.

The doctor finally came around 7:00pm. As usual (I've been through this before with my dad) she tried to convince me that we shouldn't provide my mom with medical care, that she won't recover from this, quality of life, blah blah. Look, neither of them is actually conscious of the world around them. My mom hasn't recognized me since 2005 and has dementia. My dad is not mobile and we don't know his level of consciousness because he can't communicate. Four times they've told us my dad won't live more than a few hours and he's always recovered. If you ever have an aging parent who goes in the hospital, call me and I'll come provide support. They're (understandably) brutal but you don't have to buy what they're selling. They actually want you to withhold fluids and antiobiotics - basic care.
So, tests show my mom's blood is severely oxygen deprived, she can't breath without assistance and blood tests show there's an infection. I believe, and the doctor confirmed, that she must have had the infection before today. Again, she advised that the prognosis was not good and I should call my brother and sister home. After that, I tried to call my sister but I'm glad to say she didn't answer the phone. (my guess is she's already on her way back without knowing the above info).
Driving back to Port Credit, I couldn't face going home to an empty house and parked at the canoe club with an idea of checking out Buskerfest. I walked across the bridge but everything just felt like sawdust. I couldn't even force myself to hit up Burrito Boyz for some dinner. I went back to my car, drove to Schlockbuster and rented the most trivial movie I could find - St. Trinian's (indicator of my state of mind that I rented a movie intended for tweens).
I'm just about to drain my second glass of wine and fire up the dvd. I'm glad I have people to care about but caring about people can really f* you up.