Labor day

Last night, my mom went to the emergency room. The sense I got from the brief conversation I had with my dad this morning is that she was having a difficult time breathing and her chest was in pain. Once at the hospital, they learned that she has a slight case of pneumonia. I'm not sure at this point what "slight" means ... whether the doctor used this terminology, or whether my dad did so as not to worry me. Or maybe that's the word my mom used so my dad wouldn't worry. Words are loaded and loaded and loaded. And then emptied and emptied and emptied.

I asked my dad whether they were giving her antibiotics intravenously (as they did the last time she came down with pneumonia) and he said no. But when I spoke with my mom, she said that she had been hooked up all night. I don't probe during these conversations. I don't know why. I think of all the follow-up questions I should have asked only after we hang up--all the things I could have said seem so obvious afterwards. The conversations go so quickly though the memory of them sticks, right there, still.

So I'm going to do some work now (it is Labor Day after all). Read up. Take notes. Get ready. Get excited. For tomorrow.