The MRI was scheduled for 8 a.m. My parents arrived early and patiently waited for the doctor. Again an unfamiliar face had them wait and answer questions, all of which were answered previously for another white coat.
(This made me wonder what to call a group of doctors who descend upon my mother during this trying time. A gaggle? A flurry? I settled on a disappointment. Whenever doctors rushed in a blur of white coats, we were always unsatisfied and frustrated, which makes me think that a group of doctors are called a disappointment.)
A cursory look at my mother made it obvious that things weren't going nicely, so a review of her blood work was requested and reviewed. The doctor asked my parents to stay in the waiting room until he or she (my dad never told me the gender of the doctor) could decide what to do. Seven hours later, about 3 p.m., the doctor decided that my mother should be admitted to the hospital before deciding what to do next. A bed was found for her four hours later.
When I spoke with my dad, he didn't know the precise reasoning for my mother's readmittance to the hospital. My mother's primary concern was her PICC line, which tended to get "sticky" lately, and she didn't want any occlusion of her line, fearing that it may need to be removed and reinserted on her other arm. Depending on the nurse's skill level, inserting another PICC line is horribly painful, and I cannot shed the sound of my mother's screams that echo in my memory. She wanted to know how to say saline bag in English so that she could ask the nurse for a drip line to flush the PICC line. The last words she said before we hung up were "saline bag, saline bag."
