Paging Dr. Tony

I’m sure everybody knows that Tony’s mama got really, really, REALLY sick on the day we got married. It is amazing, incredible even to see Ms. Pat now and how incredibly far she’s come along since that day. Had I known the day we got married, before I walked down the aisle, that she wasn’t there I’d have postponed the whole damn thing again (yah, yah Spanky, you’d have won the bet again). But I didn’t know until I actually walked up to Tony and they played the first song in the ceremony that she was even sick.

By 4:30 that afternoon, Tony’s brother called and said that Tony needed to come to make Ms. Pat go to the hospital because she was “out of it” and really, really ill. We made it to Methodist Medical Center, where they quickly found out she had suffered a life threatening aneurysm and needed to be transferred to Univeristy of Tennessee hospital immediately. They did surgery and it honestly appeared that things weren’t going so well and the outlook was grim.

That was six weeks ago. Today she is in EXCELLENT shape! The first thing she got back was her since of humor. When asked “Mom, how do you feel?”

She’d shoot back, “With my fingers.”

She is breathing and eating without any assistance from machines, which 6 weeks ago she could not have lived without.. Her right side is getting stronger and stronger by the day. She has improved so much that she has been moved from UT to Patricia Neal Rehab Center where she’s walking with parallel bars and peddlin’ her ass off on the bikes. GO MS. PAT!

So, we were there to visit her last night. Tony keeps her laughin all the time, which is what she needs for sure. Nobody needs to be sad and worried anymore!! She’s made it through the bad stuff already.

We walked into her room and Leacha is sitting on the end of the bed with her. I took the real chair and Tony got to sit on the portable shitter.

“Damn, mom.” He says. “If you’re not careful on this thing, you’ll shit on your shoes.”

It’s always so good to see her smile and laugh.

As it turns out, Ms. Pat had found out what all had happened to her in the last six weeks yesterday. When we got there, Tony’s sis (Leacha) asked his mom to tell him what had happened.

She looked at Leacha really sad, then over to him still really sad, like she was afraid she’d scare him if she told him.

“He already knows what happened, Mom. He just wants to hear you tell him so he knows you know what happened.” Leacha told her.

Ms. Pat looks over at Tony, still worried, “Well, they told me I had a brain aneurysm and that I was real sick.”

“Yah. You were pretty serious, Mom.” Tony pets her arm. “You know how that happened don’t you?” He asked her all serious like.

“No.” She tells him as we all sit and wait for his professional diagnosis.

“Well, it happens when people hold in their farts.” He explains. “If ya don’t let it out, then it travels up and causes real problems.”

“That’s your son.” Leacha tells her.

Ms. Pat laughed to hard to say anything back.

Thank God for Dr. Tony and his warped since of reality.