a little worried, a little guilty

i'm in this weird position of being worried about my mother, who landed in the hospital on saturday because she noticed that her brand new port (for administering IV chemo) had a little puss around it. she called her doctor, and went to the ER as directed, expecting perhaps a shot of antibiotics.

instead, she was admitted for IV antibiotics. And is still there four days later, because her port grew MRSA and now her blood cultures came back positive for MRSA (a difficult to treat bacterial infection) as well. so now she's in the hospital at least until Friday.

meanwhile, she feels absolutely fine, apart from being tired from the chemo. and her hospital room is like a nice hotel room. all the rooms are private, the food is decent, the nurses are very nice. "it's less boring than being home," says she.

with the added benefit of your child(?ren) feeling guilty that they aren't there?

i've stepped up the daily phone calls to twice daily. i thought about renting a car and driving up this weekend but Calliope has a bad cough -- i would leave her with my cousin, locally. to do short visits -- but i have a very slight runny nose as a result. so i don't know if that would even be safe. and would be a giant PITA. and my mom doesn't think it's necessary.

crazy day at work. including telling a seventeen year old -- complaining of viral illness (went to ER with it last week) that surprise!, she's pregnant. i guess she was more congested when she went in last week versus nauseous now but still. i thought ER's treated all females as PUPO (pregnant until proven otherwise). she took it well, considering it seemed that the possibility hadn't crossed her mind.

my NP student was the one conducting the visit (in my office) but she had no clue how to break the news to the patient. I was wondering why she hadn't addressed the results (I couldn't see that they were positive from my desk) and was feeling impatient with my student so I got up to get something and then saw the positive result and realized that my petrified (presumably) student had no idea how to proceed. so I took over. (for the record, the way I like to do it is to place the test on the desk between us and ask the patient, "do you know what this is? do you know what those two lines are?" somehow it seems easier to let them take a moment to decode the test than to just say bluntly, "you're pregnant." so in case you're ever in this situation... now you're prepared! at least, to handle it the way I do.)

and eleanor (calliope's playmate) is getting dropped off at 6:45 tomorrow morning. UGH!!!

i love Eleanor and adore her family, who help me and support me in so many ways, but 6:45 is "right early" to be entertaining anyone, never mind a toddler requiring supervision.