My weakness...seeing blood. I've seen too much blood today. I'm now simply waiting for the phone call stating she's being sent to the hospital for the night...more like several nights whether she likes it or not. If you don't want the literally bloody details, I suggest you stop reading now.

Who? My mother. She's an eleven year cancer survivor. Had by-pass surgery and four stints last year, the by-pass and one of the stints was in Boston during the hunt for the marathon bombers. As a result of the stints, she's on blood thinners. She's diabetic and that's the reason she had surgery this morning. Earlier this summer, she apparently injured her foot. Diabetics lose sensation in their extremities. By the time family members noticed the injury, the infection had set into the bone. So, this morning, they amputated her smallest toe and the infected bone within the foot next to said toe. She was told to stay on the blood thinners. See where this is leading yet?

Doc apparently gave her the choice of going home or spending the night. Being stubborn, she wanted to go home. Considering her condition, there should have been NO CHOICE, they should have kept her, even if it meant sedating her to keep her there. This was after they rewrapped the foot 4 times due to bleeding. I'm not happy and could see where this was going to lead.

My middle brother and I barely got her up the 4 steps into the house...leaving a trail of blood from my car into the house. Did I mention she's overweight? Instructions from the doc were to just keep adding bandages to the foot if it started seeping. We called. He repeated said instructions. WTF?

Brother added bandages to the foot twice before he had to go run errands for an hour and "catch-up with his boss". Took him closer to two hours. Meanwhile, Dad got home from work. I met him in the driveway and filled him in. In those two hours, so much blood had "seeped" that the bandages were soaked through, along with the towels and pillows propping the foot up.

Mom wanted to use the bathroom. It was a half-hour ordeal to get her up out of the chair and on her kneel scooter obtained specifically due to this surgery so she could wheel herself into the bathroom. Meanwhile, my younger brother got back to the house. He'd been busy not just discussing things with his boss, but with the doc. Doc spoke to bro's wife, an RN, and gave her permission to completely change the dressing and make a determination as to whether or not she should be admitted. That was at 3pm and they sent me home as they could see I was at my wits end. As I left, Mother mumbled she was thinking of taking up the doc's offer of staying at the hospital overnight. By this time the mound of bandages were larger than a football. She wasn't going to be taking that pair of jeans off anytime soon.

Bro's wife doesn't get off work until about the time I'm typing this. Meanwhile, I'm sure mother has continued to bleed. So, I'm simply waiting to hear that YES, she has been taken to the hospital and when visiting hours are. Hopefully, sister-in-law gets her to take the jeans off before rebandaging the leg for the trip. Otherwise, we'll never hear the end of it when they have to cut the jeans off.

Me, stressed? Just a little. Stomach is finally starting to settle down. Ate dinner too soon, but needed to when I got home, having not eaten since early this morning. But had all I could do to keep it down.

Prayers would be helpful.

Update: 8:30pm--she's in the hospital and they plan on keeping her there for several days.