So, with the shower over, my mom loaded me back into the car in a semi-comatose state. To be sure, we were both exhausted. Me, because, duh, and her because she had chaperoned a dance the night before at the middle school where she works. Good times. We got home, ordered some pizza, and vegged out. I was in bed asleep by 9:30. Such is the life of a seven and a half month pregnant lady.

And I’m not complaining.

I awoke the next morning around seven-thirty and called Ben and was regaling him with tales of the events of the previous day when my mom knocked on my door and told me she needed to speak with my brother Trevor (who was also there) and me right away. At first I thought she was just going to ask me if I wanted to go to church with her, but the ashen tone to her face and the presence of her BBF Pam quickly told me something was up.

She told me that she had gotten no sleep because she had been bleeding through the night, and now Pam was about to take her to the ER. I was alarmed, to say the absolute least. I was also frustrated because I knew that me going with them to the ER was pretty much out of the question, being ripe with Bebe and all. I’d have a lesser chance of catching our death at a sewage treatment plant.

So all morning my brother and I waited on a verdict to what the heck was happening. My mom had had a bout with diverticulitis about fifteen years ago and thought that this was probably just that rearing its ugly head. Pam called and relayed my mom’s message that she’d be back that night and we’d all have dinner with my Aunt Jaye and my cousin Maddie just as we had planned. But then, around noon, Pam called again and said that my mom was going to be admitted to the hospital for the night.

What the heck? 

There is very little more frustrating and upsetting than not knowing why something’s awry with a family member or close friend and knowing that there’s nothing you can do to help it. So I just did what I could do: I polished silver with Trevor. It’s so weird what we turn to when we just want to preoccupy ourselves. On the night of my dad’s funeral, my friends and cousins and I went to see Jurassic Park III at the theater. What else can you do? Well, possibly see a better movie, but that’s beside the point.

Cameron was (thank God) still in town, so she came over and kept me company. I really don’t know what I’d do without that girl. Pretty much the instant she walked in the door, I burst into cathartic tears and she and Trevor both held me between them. It was safe and good. They are safe and good. We went and had lunch and basically just waited to see what was going to happen next.

Finally I heard from my mom, who was unsurprisingly upbeat. When stuff like this happens, she always seems to take on a laid-back attitude. This is probably because she’s experienced very real major catastrophes in her life, so she’s able to take the minor ones with a proverbial grain of salt and deal with them with a precisely-measured amount of levity. It may also have been that she was so tired, but she didn’t seem too concerned about the whole situation other than the fact that I was there and she had planned on, duh, seeing me and not being in the hospital. She told me to just enjoy my time in Memphis and spend some quality time with my brother, which I did.

Trevor and I headed up to the hospital around five to bring her some things and check on her. She was tired, but she was comfortable and upbeat so we couldn’t help but be so too. She was fairly certain that it was all a GI issue and that she had diverticulitis or colitis, so that was a huge relief for me to know that NO she was not going to be a new test case on House. The instant people start speaking medicalese, I get so stressed out because I infrequently know what the heck they’re talking about, so the fact that she and Pam – a cancer survivor – were so laid-back about the whole situation also put Trevor and me at ease.

We left and went to Chili’s. I mean, that’s what you do, right? Polish silver and go to Chili’s.

So that was our day. I conked out again around 9:30 and just waited to see what the next day would bring.