Happy Birthday to Jesse!

How did my youngest get to be 17 already?!

Jason and Mittu planned to come up this weekend, so we were going to wait to celebrate until then — but then they decided to go ahead and come up today. So we could celebrate today — except we’re not ready because we had planned to celebrate on Saturday. I still have shopping to do! So I think we’ll have his special birthday dinner tonight and then cake, ice cream, and presents on Saturday.

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Tuesday afternoon we got a call from my mother-in-law’s assisted living place that her oxygen level had been a little low the day before and they thought she needed to be seen by a doctor. The nurse there seems to be a little over-cautious (a couple of weeks ago she insisted Mom had a urinary tract infection even after the doctor tested and said she didn’t), but over-cautious is probably better that not cautious enough. She seemed fine, but I took her in to the doctor. When her oxygen level reading was back up to 92 (had been 85 and then 89 the day before) and she had no other symptoms of anything, I assumed he would say all was well, must’ve been just a fluke, and send us home. But instead he wanted her to have some blood work drawn to check for a couple of heart problems which could cause a dip in oxygen and a chest x-ray, which they couldn’t do at the office, which meant I needed to take her to the hospital lab. She was pretty agitated at having to do that, which tends to cause confusion problems, but once we got into the waiting area she was fine and we shared a package of peanut butter crackers. This was our first experience with the hospital here, and everything went very smoothly, everyone was not only efficient but cheerful, and they even had free valet parking, which was a humongous help, because I had brought her walker instead of her wheelchair.

So Thursday I was on to other things, thinking all of that was over and done with, when the doctor’s office called and said one of the tests showed the possibility of a pulmonary embolism and we needed to take her in for a CT scan. Jim took off work and took her back to the hospital for a very long afternoon while they took more blood and then did the scan, which I imagine was pretty scary for her. The doctor there said if it had been a pulmonary embolism, she probably would not still be here, so he didn’t think that was a problem, but of course he had to check it out anyway. The scan showed no embolism, but he said her platelet count was high, which could have thrown off the one blood test, and she had the remnants of an infection, so he gave her some antibiotics. He did find a couple of other things to keep an eye on — having been married to a smoker for 54 years has affected her lungs — but overall there was nothing serious to worry about at this time.

So that was a relief for us all. We thought everything was probably ok, but once they suspect something you have to check it out. Though she’s getting more feeble, she’s been in excellent health — no sign of diabetes or blood pressure or cholesterol issues. But she is 82, so at some point her body is going to start having problems. I’m just glad everything turned out all right this time.

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Jesse was required to read a classic book for a book report at school. As we looked through my collection, we found The Scarlet Pimpernel, which I thought he might like, with its sword fighting, intrigue, and rescuing of people. The copy I had read years ago was borrowed either from a friend or the library, and the copy I had on hand was a W-Mart 2 for $1 special that I bought years ago, but I had not read that particular copy. When Jesse got to the end of it, he discovered it was more than two chapters short! There were no obvious pages missing — it just stopped abruptly. And the report is due Friday! So while I was pondering whether the library might grant me a card even though I don’t have my TN driver’s license yet, it occurred to me (thank you, Lord!) that the text might be online — and it was. It never occurred to me to check bargain books to make sure they were all there, but that might be a wise thing to do next time!