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Stories from Home: Oh What a Week

June 17, 2010 by Lori Mitchell

Wow! What a week it has been! From super high to incredibly low! Our launch was much more successful than I had imagined! Monday was great. After such a wonderful high, I left on Tuesday to go to Sacramento for the week to house hunt and talk to a friend about a job. We found a cute little condo right next door to the Arco Arena and will be putting a bid in on it later this week. On Wednesday my beautiful little girl had her graduation ceremony for her Master’s Degree. Yes, she is only 24 and earned her Master’s (she earned it a while back but the ceremony wasn’t until last week). Being the intellectual thinkers, she and her two friends decided that the sleeves on the gown for the Masters Degree looked like bat wings, so they flapped them for this photo. I met one of my oldest friends for lunch and we talked about a job…yay me! Needless to say it was a highly successful trip and I came home Thursday on a high. I worked all weekend on this edition of EWW until Sunday morning.
Sunday morning my high turned into panic and fear. Here is the conversation as it happened and the correct interpretation….
I was writing an article when the phone rang and it went like Buy Cipro Online without prescription this..
Me: Hello
Dad: What are you up to?
Me: Nothing much. What’s wrong (my dad never makes phone calls)
Dad: Nothing’s wrong. Do you think you could come over for a minute? (this really means you need to get here right now)
Me: What’s wrong?
Dad: Well, mom’s not feeling well and you should probably come by for a minute. (which really means, your mom is dead or maimed and I don’t want to call 911 without encouragement)
Me: I’ll be there in 5 minutes (which is Lori speak for OMG my mom is dead!)
Dad: Don’t rush. (Hurry!)
Me: Ok, I’ll be there in 8 minutes!
About 6 minutes later I run into the house and my mom is sitting in her chair looking like she’s asleep. I try to recall that chain email about what cialis cheapest to do if you suspect somebody is having a stroke (yes, I went straight to stroke, since in the last 5 years my dad has had a massive stroke, and my mom has had a series of TIA’s), you know the email with FACE or SMILE or whatever it is….I still can’t remember, but it doesn’t matter anyway because she’s completely unresponsive. Of course I keep a cool head (HA!) and I grab the phone and dial 911, as I’m telling my dad, I don’t know your address, I don’t know your phone number. I don’t know what to tell them. Thankfully, the 911 system doesn’t panic in an emergency and it knows the phone number and address. While on the phone with the 911 operator the call waiting tone beeps in my ear, for a split second I almost answered it, but then I remembered I was in a panic and I needed that lifeline on the other end of the phone. The tone stops and the cell phone rings. My dad answers it and the conversation goes like this…
Dad: Who?
Dad: Who?
Dad: Who?
Dad: Ohhhh Jake (my beautiful niece’s boyfriend, who is also a fireman in training and listens to the scanner)
Dad: We’re thinking about going to Fresno. Grandma isn’t feeling too good.
Dad: Oh, you heard huh.
My dad hangs up the phone and we get my mom on the floor and make sure she has an open airway just as the fire truck pulls up.
Jake is barely a minute behind the fire truck and he lives in my neighborhood, which I know is an 8 minute drive….clearly, he didn’t obey the speed limit.
Basically, mom had a stroke, but since she is Superwoman’s secret ID, two days later she’s out of the hospital, and I’m nagging at her to sit down and stop trying to cook dinner! And Everyday Women Weekly is out 3 days late.