The Problems of Life...

Sorry for not posting lately. That Da Vinci Code story must be getting pretty stale if you've been stopping by. We've had a load of problems here in West L.A. My 90 year old mother (who lives with my wife, daughter, son and self - along with my 92 year old aunt who lives out in one of our back houses, and a nephew living in another) had a bowel obstruction last week due to a herniated large intestine. We rushed her to UCLA emergency and they operated early on Tuesday morning last.

The operation was entirely successful. The next day she was having some problems with an irregular heartbeat. They followed the standard protocol for it, but she had a really bad reaction to the medication. Her heart suddenly started getting slower and slower and slower. While they scrambled the ICU staff, she was calmly giving me all of her final words - how to handle the funeral ("don't spend too much money"), who to tell that she loved and appreciated, etc. She was totally tranquil and ready to depart. In fact, she was entirely convinced that she was going. They had the pads on her and were ready to jolt her if she flat-lined. She didn't and her heartbeat slowly returned to normal. Unfortunately, her mind has not recovered nearly as well as her body in the last few days. It's partly a case of mom already being a little neurotic to begin with, combined with the surgery, the psychosis producing effects of being in ICU for 3 days and then her not "going" when she fully expected to. Now she thinks she was either in Madera, CA or Palm Springs, thinks they operated on the wrong person, believed that the morticians were standing by her bedside, etc.

Never the less, they released her to us this evening since physically she is doing as well as can be hoped for and there is no reason for her to remain hospitalized. Anyway, I'm kind of tied up with everything that is going on and I hope you'll understand that I may not be posting much in the next week or so.

As long as I'm here though, I'd like you to take a look at this story and explain to me how in the HELL this can happen. I just read it and shook my head. There is just so many reasons why this story is wrong and why we should never have to read something like it.