“Do not swallow Tylenol PM if there is any chance in hell that your mother will call you and tell you that she thinks she’s having a heart attack.”

“If you ever need anything please don’t hesitate to ask someone else first” Kurt Cobain

Anyway, advance notice: I haven’t slept in a long time, but I feel compelled to post this, so it shall be written, warts and all.

Last night, after feeling the effects of swallowing the above mentioned pills and gratefully crawling in between my sheets and passing out, my cell phone rang. “Mom calling” it said on the screen. I pushed the answer button and mumbled something. Right away I noticed something was off by the tone of her voice. “Are you O.K.? You sound mad.” I asked.
“No, I am not O.K., I am having pains in my chest and I think I am having a heart attack.” was the stern reply. I instantly bolted upright in bed. “Have you called 911?”

“No, and I don’t want to.” (It should perhaps be added here that my mom lives 20 odd miles from my house in a city outside of Portland. I don’t know how many miles it is exactly because I think in bus rides, not distance.)

“Anyway”, she says, “this is really important, I need you to write it down and tell the doctor.” I scrounge around and find a pencil on the floor as well as Alex’s favorite bedtime reading magazine, the one a lot of men probably fall asleep looking at, PC Magazine. I start writing across its cover. “Tell the doctor I took 2 Aleve 30 minutes ago with a cup of tea, black, no milk.” Now I know something is really wrong. My Mom has never drunk a cup of black tea without milk in her life. If faced with the prospect she will drive to the store to buy milk.

I start pulling on jeans and frantically looking for my purse. “Are you still having pains? Hang up and dial 911!” I exclaim.
She is breathing very fast and every once in awhile she’ll gasp loudly. “No! I am not calling 911! I don’t want my neighbors to know my business, and I don’t want those people in my apartment!” She says those people as if EMTs are the enemy.

“For lunch I had lamb soup and for breakfast I had toast and tea, NO MILK, and I forgot to take my Celebrex today..” Still confused as I run around pulling my nightgown over my head and pulling a shirt on I dare to ask her why she’s telling me what she ate.

“Because I think I have indigestion, but I don’t know, it might be a heart attack.”

At this point I play strong daughter and I say, “That’s it, I am calling 911 for you.”

In a voice so angry she gave me chills she says, “Don’t. You. Dare.” She then asks me if I would grab the kids and take a cab to her apartment. I scrounge in my purse and see two ones and a handful of change. All of my money is in the bank. Do cabs take debit cards? I don’t even know.

I run downstairs and search for the home phone. It is time to ask for help. I ask my Mom if she has her Nitroglycerin tablets. She shakes the bottle into the phone so I can hear them. I encourage her to take one. She refuses, telling me they give her the worst headache she’s ever had in her life. Right here, at this point, my husband would say “if your mother refuses to call 911, if she has time to tell you everything she ate and she is refusing to take her Nitroglycerin tablet then she is not having a heart attack.” But see, my Mom, she’s tricky like that. She had a heart attack when I was a little girl. My parents, my three siblings and I were having dinner at a friend of the family’s house. My Mom had a heart attack at their house but didn’t want to ruin dinner for anyone, so she didn’t say anything until we were headed to the car and she clutched my Dad’s arm and whispered that she needed to go to the ER.

I find the home phone and dial my brother while listening to my Mom talk about chewing three Rolaids, and won’t she feel stupid if she goes to the hospital and it’s a stomach ache? I try the “better safe than sorry” line. My brother’s not answering his phone. I decide to call 911 myself, but I can’t find my Mom’s address. I just had it the other day. I dump my purse all over the living room floor and sift through the contents. At this point Nathan is awake and sensing that something is wrong, he starts pulling on clothes and shoes too. I try to use hand gestures to tell him what’s going on. I give up and scratch the details on a piece of paper and call my sister Monica.

My sister, while not a doctor, has her degrees in Science and works in a field where she wears scrubs and sees patients daily. She has been seen with a stethoscope around her neck and it wasn’t Halloween. She is the one to sit by at family dinners if you think you might need CPR or the Heimlich maneuver. Everyone goes to her with their health concerns. Why didn’t I call her first? I give my cell phone to Nathan and tell him to talk to his Nanny (the grandkids call her Nanny) while I talk to my sister. I can tell as soon as Monica answers that she was fast asleep when I called. I tell her the situation and she says, “Oh, this is fucking ridiculous.” That’s one thing that I really like about her; she swears so infrequently that when she finally does, it has impact. Monica quickly decides that if my Mom isn’t going to call 911 she is driving over there and taking her to the hospital.

I take the phone back from Nathan and talk with my Mom. She is scared. I tell her Monica is on her way. She sounds as if she’s crying. She wants to be taken to her regular hospital in Portland. She’s worried that everyone is going to be mad at her if it’s not a heart attack. I explain that is ridiculous, that she has to take care of herself. She asks me if Monica was asleep. I lie. I try to encourage her to do the breathing techniques that I do when I am having a panic attack. I ask her about taking an aspirin. Are you supposed to take an aspirin when you think you’re having a heart attack? She says she’s already had her one aspirin for the day. I tell her she can have another one but she shoots down that idea. I mention the nitro tablets again. She shakes the bottle again, but refuses to take one. She describes this lamb soup she made. She sounds funny, sleepy, far away. “I bought your sister some cookies. Do you think it would be weird if I gave them to her?”

I tell her to go ahead. I can hear the package crinkling in her hands; they’re Arnott’s Biscuits from Australia. I remember how excited she was when she found a shop that carried them. She bought some for all of her kids.

I hear my sister arrive. My Mom says to her, “I am feeling better. If you could just drive me to Tammy’s house, I want to sleep over there with her.” My sister’s voice is loud, strong, and firm, “I drove all the way out here and you’re going to the fucking hospital.”

“O.K., after the hospital I want to go to Tammy’s.” my Mom sounds like the child in the room.

Why didn’t my Mom call Monica in the first place? I’m no good at crises.

She is whisked right in at the ER. I curled up on the couch with Nathan, waiting for my phone to ring with the latest update. My sister calls me when she can, telling me of the tests. I feel bad for not being there. Finally they admit my Mom. She ends up staying in the hospital for almost 20 hours. Diagnosis- Extremely high blood pressure, low blood oxygen levels, very low potassium levels and this time, no heart attack. The doctor tweaked her medications and told her she needs to go to see her physician. She is now tucked into bed.

Yes, I know I didn’t handle the situation properly. I should have had my Mom’s address accessible and called 911 immediately despite her protests. I do have her address by the phone now, but shit, I hope nothing like that happens again. It’s times like this that I am glad not to be an only child.