Put Your Bra Back On

Put Your Bra Back On (revised)

Chapter One. Life gets twisted.

"Katti.. severe wheezing and gasping ..Please.. come!" " Mom, I am on my way!" Katti hung the phone up looked at the clock and saw it said seven fifteen, so much for getting more sleep after the boys caught the bus to school. Katti jumped out of bed , grabbed her jeans and shirt threw them on stepped into the bathroom, grabbed a scrunchy twisted her hair into it, stepped into a pair of shoes tied them quickly and ran for the door. Grabbing her cell on the way calling 911 and giving them the information knowing she would still beat them there. Driving like a maniac was nothing new to Katti this week, just three nights ago, she had had almost the same call from her grandmother just three nights ago and ended up in the emergency room with her all night then ICU the next morning. Praying the whole time she drove the three short miles to her mother's house, Katti was running things thru her mind trying to get some semblance of order of priorities for the boys and the rest of the responsibilities on her.

Katti arrived at her mothers house, used her key to get in and then went to the front door to open it for the paramedics. Katti ran down the hall to her mothers room and saw her lying there, half on and half off the bed, her face so grey it looked bluish and her lips were very blue. Katti's eyes went wide looking at her mom, called 911 again from the house phone to confirm to them this was no prank call, started a breathing treatment on her mom as it couldn't hurt to try to open her airways better. This was not the first time her moms COPD had caused her so much trouble, if only she would quit smoking , she thought. "Mom, open your eyes and try to focus on me." The whole time she was assessing the situation and the ability to get her out of this room easily, Katti was counting respirations and pulse. "Mom, please use your inhaler so this breathing treatment can work better" Katti was begging her mom. "Mom, the paramedics are on the way, do you think we can walk you down the hall to make it easier for them to take you out of here? If not, I can try to call Ray and see if he can help me get you down the hall." Her mom shook her head no, Katti at that moment realized she needed to call her brother Blake to get him on the road as he lived almost an hour away. Katti took her cell phone out and called Blake and told him the situation as best she knew it, told him the hospital she would be going to and rounded up all the meds to take with them as well as an overnight bag. Katti tried to figure out a way to get her mom to the living room since the hall was so narrow, and decided to put her mom on her comforter on the floor and drag her down the hall. Her mother protested a bit, but in the end Katti got her to the living room and was just putting couch cushions behind her to help her breathe a little easier, when the neighbors came over to bring some pears. Katti met them at the door and explained that she really wasn't going to have time to make the preserves now, they offered their help and prayers and then went back home to be out of the way.

The screaming siren announced the paramedics and soon the house was over run with uniforms with a stretcher in the middle. The paramedics reminded Katti of well organized ants that marched to orders that no one else could hear. They went through the bag of medicines, lists of allergies and tried to get her breathing stabilized with yet another breathing treatment. The breathing treatments weren't helping enough so they started an IV in her arm and told Neta, her mother that they were going to take her to the hospital. The expression on her face made them all wonder if she was really absorbing what they were saying. Katti locked up the house behind them and left after the ambulance and still had time to check on her grandmother before they allowed her into the emergency room with her mother. Katti had taken a chance and told Grandmother that her mom was downstairs getting checked out by the doctors because Katti thought she sounded a little rattley. Now, Katti knew that wasn't the whole truth, but until she knew anything more definite on her mother she really didn't want to take any chances with her grandmother. Neta was her only child and since her grandfather had passed away, the two of them had become even closer. They were even next door neighbors for pete's sake. They did everything together and spoiled the grandkids rotten. Katti told her grandmother only what she knew for a fact, Mom wasn't breathing as clearly as she would like so she needed to be looked at. Katti felt justified in her omissions for now, her mother would kill her if she upset grandmother and made her health worse.

Time was dragging by and she called her ex-husband and asked him to please pick up the boys so that she wouldn't have to leave the hospital while waiting on the doctors to make any decisions on her mother. Four hours later time was still crawling, her brother Blake and his wife Delilah although most everyone in the family called her Dee, had gotten there a couple of hours before and had been pacing back and forth the whole time firing off questions that she was really too distracted to be dealing with. Katti had already told them all she knew, and that she was keeping her mothers condition from Grandmother until her health improved, how many different ways were there to tell them she had gotten a phone call that scared the living crap out of her, she wondered. Katti was about to go upstairs to check on her grandmother to keep herself busy and her grandmother calm while they were working with her mother, who would have dreamed she would have both of the women that she loved and looked up to in the hospital at the same time. She knew that she needed to tell her grandmother something more concrete, but was afraid with her health being as precarious as it was at ninety years that it was dangerous to tell her too much. Katti was still wondering what was happening since the doctor had cleared the room, she heard her name being called. "Katti, Katti! You need to get upstairs fast your grandmother just stopped breathing! " yelled her sister in law, Dee. "What? What happened" Katti almost panicked but remembered to breathe this is her sister in law, Dee is known for histrionics. Dee told her they were visiting and was telling her about Neta being downstairs then she started gasping and they were trying to resuscitate her.