Yesterday

Elsa helped Zack make this card.

We got Mom all setted in the Town and Country nursing home, and then a nurse came in and perfunctorily told us we had to turn around and go back to the hospital. Someone at St. Joe's had faxed over the wrong information, about a different Marjorie Mullen, who was 92, and not as sick as Mom. They didn't have a room to accommodate Mom's isolation requirements.

I was about to leave. It was 4 p.m. and I needed to get on the road to pick up Zack by 6 p.m. Instead, I had to call Jeff, and he left work early to get Zack. I stayed with Mom until she was back at St. Joe's, and I got her some dinner. Oh, and I pumped breast milk in my car, into my last bottle of the day. It was almost overflowing. I had to fill it way past the top line. I had already driven to Van Nuys to drop off the rest of the bottles at daycare. For anyone reading this who's not familiar with SoCal, I have been driving an hour out of my way to hit daycare to the north, and then turning around and going south to visit Mom. This has been going on for a while! I have also gotten pretty good at pumping while driving.

The hospital sent Mom fake flowers (no real flowers allowed), balloons, and a stuffed bunny. And big wigs apologized to us. But there's just nothing they can say, as far as I'm concerned.

The strain of the last few weeks is really taking a toll on me. My grandparents can't seem to deal with any of this. Driving down to Orange is starting to make me bone tired. It's taken two hours to get home the last two nights. My brother is too far away to help and is about to become victim to Microsoft's first round of layoffs ever, and he's got three kids. So he's pretty strapped. And the biggest problem is that Zack can't come to the hospital, which makes all this crazy driving necessary. Once Mom clears isolation, we should have an easier time of things, because Zack will be able to visit her.

Today I have to deal with more hospital people.

Mom was pretty out of it last night. After I checked out Town and Country, she started getting kind of excited about going to the nursing home. "Do they have activities?" she asked. So last night, in the middle of all the chaos, she sort of woke up and said, "Well, can you wheel me to the entertainment?"

Classic.