dark circles

My mother has been hospitalized for over a week now. It began with that dreadful cliche: she fell down and couldn't get up. But after 10 days in the hospital, there still isn't much of a diagnosis to be had.

She hadn't broken anything when she fell, and her only symptoms were slightly high blood pressure and low sodium levels. This last one annoys me, as it seems that some doctors think that a low sodium diet will cure everything, when it can actually contribute to vertigo.

The upshot of all this is that after four days in the hospital, the doctors decided to move her to what they described as a "rehabilitation and physiotherapy facility". They kept calling it rehab for short, which irritated me as it sounded like my tee-total, non-swearing mother was drying out or smoking crack. (At least my mother found this observation amusing.)

This facility is tacked on to a nursing home and I have major problems with these. I think they're human junkyards, and indicative of some of our society's worst faults; mainly, the belief that it's okay to dispose of our aging parents in these places so they won't clutter up our own homes.

This one wasn't the worst I'd seen, but it still had its share of comatose and/or senile patients. But the most depressing thing about the place is that it was obvious that some patients had no visitors. Ever. Perhaps they didn't have any children to look after them, but it was still difficult for me to even look at these people, even if they had no comprehension that anyone was around at all.

I am beginning to feel that my mother's time is running out, and I'm having a mysterious amount of trouble dealing with it. The heart surgery she had 13 years ago was only designed to give her 10 to 15 more years, and the only thing she frets about is her Siamese cat Princess Leia. She seems to accept it all quietly without complaining. But I keep having these awful premonitions that she won't be able to go home again.

I've stopped asking her to move in with me, as she has never shown any sign of considering it. But I can't help but think that even Chez Melina is better than a nursing home. At least she could bring Princess Leia with her.