We went to the hospital. They did some tests and gave her solumedrol via a nebulizer and her O2 sats promptly went up to 99%. Everything else looked fine--CAT scan showed no clots, lungs clear, heart okay; the only problem was the breathing and a fever. Diagnosis: upper respiratory infection; so they're giving her IV antibiotics and have continued to periodically give her the nebulizer treatment. I guess there's some steroid therapy in there too.
We were in the ER until 8 AM--seven hours--when a bed finally became available. Once I saw that she was installed in her hospital room, I took my leave (with her blessing) and went home, as I hadn't slept since 11 AM Saturday morning. I didn't actually get to bed until 10 AM Sunday morning.
Sunday was pretty much a loss. I was exhausted; I ate leftover tacos, had a shower, and flopped. I was awakened periodically by phone calls from my brother and sister, and I talked to Mom a couple of times yesterday, too. But otherwise, all I did on Sunday--the only thing--was sleep.
23 hours awake with the latter eight or nine full of severe stress--yeah, that sounds about right.
So I'll be going to the hospital again in a couple of hours. I'm hoping they'll get the issue figured out and come up with a plan of care, and get Mom home again before the week is out, just because I know she's awfully miserable being in the hospital.
* * *
As for me, all this ended up nixing my attendance of a blogmeet in miniature. I was pretty disappointed, but there was no way I could go when I'd spent all night in the ER.
Forget firearms; I didn't trust myself with sharp implements.
But I suppose there'll be another time, and hopefully I'll get to go meet some of these people.
* * *
Michelle Malkin on the "blabbermouth media". Never trust a reporter. Not ever, not even a little bit.
* * *
Is this what they're trying to prove now? That ice ages are all caused by asteroid impacts?
It seems to me that if you want to demonstrate anthropogenic global warming, first you have to deal with natural warming and cooling cycles; and how better to do that than to blame rocks from the sky?
If you start with the premise that Earth's atmosphere can't lose heat without an external forcing (such as something throwing millions of tons of dust into the air) then you can demonstrate that runaway warming is possible from an extremely small unnatural forcing (such as human-generated carbon dioxide, which amounts to 2% of the Earth's total atmospheric carbon budget).
After all: if Earth's atmosphere can cool without any unusual or external forcing, then it could warm without any unusual or external forcing, and could have experienced many natural warm/cool cycles throughout history. If that's so, then it's possible that what we're now calling "climate change" may be nothing unusual whatsoever, but a natural variation in Earth's climate...and we can't have that, now, can we?
* * *
Over at Eternity Road there are a couple posts on Angelo Codevilla's piece.
Curmudgeon Emeritus.
Aaron.
That piece is turning out to be quite important to the dextrosphere. I really do have to read it soon....
* * *
Shamus discusses his adventures with WoW.
He starts with a screencap of phishing spam and goes on from there.
He talks about the economics of epic mounts, including the motorcycles--well, just wait until you get to Dalaran, sir, and you'll see them all over the goddamned place. You can't get away from them.
I don't like them; they're noisy and a bit anachronistic. I don't like the gnomish mechastriders (gnome mounts) for the same reason: they make annoying sounds.
* * *
I read a lot from the Aluratek while waiting in the ER. I finished Franklin's autobiography and was a bit disappointed in it: what I really wanted to read about was his view of the events leading up to the Revolutionary war, and about what he did in France during the war. Unfortunately, his autobiography doesn't include that.
Then I went on to read part of Cyrano de Bergerac but got sick of trying to plow through the obscure public domain translation. The dead tree version I own is much more readable.
So I moved on to Don Quixote. Problem: the "translator's foreword" is fifty-six pages long. That's tiresome and annoying; if you're going to write fifty-freaking-six pages of stuff about the work you've translated put it in the back, anus. I might be interested in reading what you have to say about it after I have read the story; it's guaranteed that putting it before the story will ensure I'll just skip it, because I want to read the story, not what you think about it.
The story itself is entertaining, and I can see some interesting parallels between Quixote's actions and those of government, but I'm not about to go on a long-winded rant about that nonsense right now.
* * *
The most pressing issues of the day have been dealt with, so all I need to do now is...everything else. *sigh* Mainly that consists of me going to the hospital and taking Mom some essential supplies, including crossword puzzles and her book, and then spending some time there to ensure everything is going well.
As for me, I'm still freaking tired, but all I have to do at the hospital is be there and talk some. I don't need to move furniture or unload a truck, for crying out loud. So, off I go!