Mom's In the Hospital

She began to feel bad on Wednesday evening and spent most of the day Thursday in bed with a fever and a spreading rash. She went to the doctor on Friday and she was given some Prednisone and told to take Benadryl and apply Cortisone cream to the rash. The doc even said she wasn’t sure how to treat whatever mom had. Clearly, steroids weren’t the way to go.

The family gathered in Arlington Saturday night to celebrate Granny's birthday, but Mom decided to stay home. When we made it back to Dallas late Saturday night, the rash had spread more and she was still running a fever of over 100 degrees. We took her to the ER and they decided to keep her overnight. I took the car back to Mom's house and her husband stayed with her. Turns out that she didn't get into a room 'til 4:00AM. Ugh.

We went up to the hospital yesterday before heading back to Austin. I was tempted to stay, but felt like I really couldn’t help much. She’s in a shared room, so there’s just one chair in a corner for a visitor to sit in. Her husband stayed with her all night Sat night and went home to shower while we were there. I called last night after we got back and my Uncle and Aunt were there… I think Granny is going to go over today.

I talked to her about 30 minutes ago and she said that she thinks the fever has finally broken. The doctors aren't certain what she has, but think that it may be Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. She said the doctor hadn't been in to see her yet today. I imagine that her response to the antibiotic and other medicines will help them finalize a diagnosis.

One of the amusing things to me about all of this is the name under which she is registered at the hospital. She was born with the initials M W C, but always went by the name that starts with a W. She married my dad and went by W C B. Now, she’s married to another man and uses the initials W B H. I have no idea what her legal name is. Her name on the hospital records is M H. Odd.