I last noted my mother's injury on the 14th. It progressed. Percocet is prescribed on the 17th by the primary care physician (PCP) as she takes off for a 2 week vacation.

She is a wonderful woman. I just wish she wouldn't disappear when my mom gets real sick.

On Wednesday I took her to the emergency room. Lower back pain diagnosed and she was sent home where she collapses trying to get into her house. The fire truck a few blocks away responds to carry her to her bed.

On Friday the VNA nurse tells me she can't stay at home. I get her a bed at a nearby nursing home. They up the Percocet to kill the pain.

She is now incommunicado and on Monday falls out of her bed and breaks her left arm. We take her to an orthopedic practice which tells us that surgery is required. The surgeon tells me (through his PA) that he won't do the surgery unless her PCF confirms that she has the stamina to survive the procedure.

I get mad. I take her today in an ambulance back to the emergency room. The triage nurse is about to put her in the ambulance and send her back to the nursing home. Fortunately,a gunshot victim arrives with a phalanx of police and rescue personnel and distracts her from her gatekeeper assignment.

An orderly stands by my mother's stretcher. "14!" yells the triage nurse. The orderly takes my mother to examining room 14.

Three hours later a doctor tells me she will be admitted because of the major surgery that will be required to repair her arm. Two hours later an orthpedist tells me he thinks he can do it with gravity. No surgery will be required. Fortunately, I have already signed the admission papers.

Nine hours after our arrival and various x-rays, cat scans, blood work, urinanalyis (they were thorough) and excruciating screams from my mom, I am given a slip that says "4 South - Jane Brown - 418". A few minutes later an orderly starts her on her way with me following. We go up and down elevators, through a tunnel filled with 1960's medical equipment and up another elevator to the 4th floor of Jane Brown - South. A cheery nurse greet us. "Down to 2" she says. "They've decided she needs a heart monitor. We can't do that here."

Down to 2 and into a private room. They move her from the stretcher onto a bed. She screams again. I look around. Jane Brown is funky - the original active hospital from the 19th century. The nurses are nice - from another world. My mother's nurse says to me "How can you stand the pain she has been in?"

Her room is quiet. I turn off the TV. The nurse turns down the lights. She seems at peace. She closes her eyes and rests.

My mom was having her 23rd out of 25 planned radiation treatments when she wrenched her back getting onto the treatment table. She blames the technician. Now she is refusing to go back for the final two treatments. In any event, she's in too much pain right now to go for at least the next few days. What next?

The boys are doing OK. Skipper grumbles about school but is enjoying playing soccer for the Mustangs in the East Side Soccer League. Hank tags along but is too young to join a team.

Last night I had a very vivid nightmare. It doesn't happen to me often, and it is even rarer that I remember them. I was sailing with my old First Mate Anthony. The boys and my father were intermittently on board, but Anthony was the main character. He couldn't do anything right. He jibed the boat, got her in irons, and was generally totally hopeless which is the opposite of how he really is.

Eventually we got ourselves straightened out and I went below to look for a chart. We were going from Stonington to Mattapoisett. A real voyage of this distance if done in daylight would require a stopover at Newport or Block Island, but this didn't register in my dream. I couldn't find the chart for the approaches to Mattapoisett and became increasingly desperate. Suddenly I woke up in a cold sweat. It took me an hour to get back to sleep again.

Skipper is enjoying school again. Hank is happy. My mom is nearing the end of her radiation treatment.