I Just Can’t Win
It’s now Saturday night and I’m still on the Cape. I arrived Thursday afternoon around 5:45PM. My friend, Karyn (Vexed in the City blog) picked me up at the Hyannis Intermodal Transportation Center (what a joke..it’s a bus/scenic train ride station). We went directly to Cape Cod Hospital to see my Mom.
At first, I was shocked. Aside from giving birth to two children my mother has never been in a hospital for medical reasons in her life. Ever. At 74 years old, that’s pretty impressive. I guess she’s much stronger than we all thought (most people her age would have broken bones in a fall that bad).
OOOPS – I got distracted. Anyway, I walked in to see her sitting up preparing to eat dinner. Her back was to the door, her hair was suffering from 5 days of bed-head, she was in a hospital gown and she had oxygen tubes sticking out of her nose. It frightened me…you shouldn’t have to see a parent like that.
Still, she lit up when she saw me and Karyn and was able to maintain a conversation, smile and eat her dinner. Shortly after, my father walked in. We all sat and chatted for a while before Karyn headed out…then my father and I went home after stopping off at a Centerville restaurant for dinner.
The next day my father and I ran some errands before heading to the hospital in hopes of picking Mom up. The plan was that she would have one more CAT-scan and then be released. We weren’t so lucky. At 6PM she was told that she needed to stay one more night because the surgeon/doctor wanted to do one more CAT-scan. Unfortunately, the doctor had gone home and never left an explanation as to why my Mom needed to stay. That just caused my mother and father (and me, to a lesser extent) to get paranoid that something showed up in that day’s CAT-scan.
The stress caused my Mom’s head ache and sick stomache to get worse.
This morning, my father and I were preparing to visit her at the hospital when my Mom called to say that she’s being released! YAY. We hopped in the car, drove to the hospital (with Dusty, of course) and picked her up. She was wheeled out in a wheelchair and once in the car she said she wanted to go to Osterville to get her hair done. That’s a good sign.
With her hair washed and cut, we brought her home, had some lunch, watched some TV, napped and played some Rummy.
And this is where we get to the title of today’s blog entry. Despite being on oodles of pain killers, despite having spent nearly two weeks in the hospital, despite feeling sick to her stomache and having a head ache…my mother kicked my ass at Rummy.
This is getting obscene. First Jason keeps winning, and now my temporarily disabled and heavily sedated mother whoops my ass.
Perhaps I need to switch games? Perhaps I should start cheating.
Well, I’m still hoping to make the Gay Boston Bloggers dim sum event tomorrow morning. I’ll just have a longer commute. If I play my cards right (no pun intended), I can arrive at South Station at 11:10…just 10 minutes later than the blogger function’s start time in nearby Chinatown.
Wish me luck! Based on this past year and based on my game playing lately, I’ll need all the luck I can get.
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Thank God — I am so relieved!!! Let’s hope your mom kicks your ass at Rummy for years to come!!! Give her my love. Will try to give her a call later this weekend or week if I can get home in time. Great news to read!
Karl–i hope everything continued to go will with your mom–we all missed you this morning at dom-sum.
Well, obviously it’s been demonstrated over and over again that you suck at rummy. So, I’m not surprised. We missed you at dim-sum!
I’m glad your mom is doing better — and don’t feel bad — when my dad was in the hospital I *fainted*
Karl, I realize we have VERY different experiences with our parents and different phases of health or the absence of, but I thought your mom looked good. The tubes weren’t a bad thing, just making sure she had optimum blood gases , otherwise the headaches and nausea could have been worse. Or was it the bedhead that scared you… I realize you are from You-Know-Where but for crissakes, cut Lil a break! She looked good.