how are you doing?

"how are you doing?" that's what several friends and family members have asked me today - well, the answer has been "Fine" - fine until you asked. then i want to just completely fall apart. i was a bit on edge because at 3pm Mom was scheduled to meet a lawyer, to do all those legal things, draw up a will, etc...

didn't happen. at mom's regular 2pm radiation treatment the medical staff noticed she wasn't doing too good - her breathing's really labored and she has no strength at all. sent her for a chest x-ray and to the emergency room, not particularly because it was a major emergency but because they'd find out what was going on faster than if they sent her to her pulmonary doc and then he ordered tests, blah blah blah... so, at the er we find out that she's not holding her oxygen very well, they're giving her breathing treatments and gonna keep her overnight. she was having some pain, so they gave her a little bit o morphine - i'm praying it was the morphine that had her in la-la land. she was talking to me, and i asked her to speak up - "Flanner & Buchanan?" she said. now, even if it is just the drugs talking, when Mom babbles about funeral homes, i'm FREAKING OUT.

so i came home to get her meds so that we can tell the hospital precisely what dosages of what she's taking (why she doesn't have a list of hers printed out like i do mine, i dunno) and now i'm waiting for the hospital to call and tell me what room they've put her in so i can go to her.

this is so damned hard.