Another Blessing

“Gale, can you come over and help me?” Dad called anxiously up the stairs.

I dropped my brush and ran out onto the landing. “Sure, dad. What's the matter?”

“Mom's bad!” he called over his shoulder, already on the way back to his and mom's side of our double home. I ran after him; down the stairs, through my kitchen, our double living room, mom's kitchen, and up her stairs into their bedroom. Mom was half sitting, half laying in one of the two, big easy chairs that occupied the sitting area of their master-bedroom. She was as white as a sheet.

“What's the matter?” I asked her gently, catching her hand up in mine.

“I'm bleeding inside, I think,” she whispered.

“We called Alan,” dad jumped in. “He wanted us to come up to Snowflake, so we started to get ready, but mom's so weak I don't think she can make it.”

Mom tried to smile at dad apologetically, but she was too tired to even do that.

“I called Alan back and he said to call 911, so I did. The paramedics are on their way, but mom needs help to get dressed before they come.”

I looked closer at mom. Sure enough, she was still wearing her white, cotton nightgown. Turning around I saw her suitcase laying open on their unmade bed, a few odds and ends of clothing lying beside it.

“Where's your bathrobe, mom?” I asked, as the doorbell rang. “I'll help her get it on, dad. You go down and let the paramedics in.”

We got mom into her bathrobe as the young men came up the stairs. They knelt beside her, taking her vital signs and asking questions.

“I'm so sorry for the mess,” mom kept apologizing as they had to step around the packing boxes stacked next to her chair. Their new house up in Snowflake was almost finished, and mom had been collecting boxes for the move. “I didn't even get my bed made,” she worried as the paramedics helped her onto a stretcher and began carrying her down the stairs.

“It's OK, mom,” I tried to reassure her, “I'm sure these men have seen worse.”

“You betcha,” one of the nice boys agreed, and the other men nodded their heads. “You'd be amazed at what we've seen.”

Once they had mom out in the ambulance, dad got his car and followed them to the hospital. As soon as I had the girls fed and off to school I joined him. We'd asked the paramedics if they could take mom to the new hospital in town, Gilbert mercy Medical Center. It was a little closer, brand new, and we hoped less busy and more personal than the hospital she'd gone to before.

It was a wonderful change for the better. The staff was caring and calm. They treated mom and the rest of our family like we were the most important people there, and I was really impressed.

“If I ever have to go to the hospital, I'm coming here!” I told my daughter on the phone that afternoon as I explained what was happening.

“Do they know what's wrong yet?” she asked.

“They did a colonoscopy, and found a tumor,” I told her. “It's bleeding, and they need to do surgery right away, but before they can do that they have to give her another angiogram to make sure her heart is up to it.”

The previous year, mom had been in the hospital for sixteen days waiting for emergency surgery. There was so much red tape, mis-comunication and wasted time that we all about had strokes before she finally had quadruple by-pass surgery. It was after that that dad decided to move to Snowflake where my brother-in-law, the doctor, could care for mom personally. This time, though, things went much smoother. The angiogram was done the following morning, it came back good, and she had surgery that afternoon.

“Everything looks really good,” the surgeon told us afterwords. “I think we got all of the tumor, and she did very well.”

A few days later mom was released from the hospital, weak, but much stronger than when she had gone in. The doctor called the next day with the best news of all. The tumor was not cancerous, after all. Yeah!

“Personally, I have to call it a little miracle,” he told mom and dad over the phone. “When a tumor like that bleeds, it is always cancerous, and I was just hoping we got it all. You are one lucky lady.”

Lucky? Yes. But blessed would be a better word, I think. Before her surgery, dad, my husband, my brothers and brother-in-laws all went down to the hospital and gave mother a priesthood blessing. Once again, the Lord had blessed her and she was allowed to stay with us. Maybe I was having a hard time letting her and dad move away. Maybe I wasn't very happy about them selling the house, the cabin, and changing everything in my life, but I was grateful at that moment that I still had my mother. There was still so many things I needed to learn from her!