So I'm sitting at the computer IMing Will.

It's 12:15am. Being up that late is nothing new.

I hear something down the hall, but don't pay much attention.

Then I hear it.

Mom crying. Whimpering my name. I'm out of the room and in the hall before you can blink.

She's leaning on a wall in the hallway crying, holding her head, begging me to help and I don't know what to do. I ask her what's wrong and she just says, "It hurts, it hurts, make it stop."

My stomach drops out. My mom's pain threshold is higher than anyone I know. She could cut off her hand and shrug. Yet here she is sobbing in pain. That scared the shit out of me.

She stumbles, quite literally back into her room and I'm panicking internally. Every possible thought of what could be going on is running through my head. None of it good.

Let me catch you up. Mom got into a car wreck Friday. Nothing major or believe me it'd have been blogged. She was on her way to work, four lane street, the woman is in the far right lane right next to mom, mom's in the left. This woman tries a u-turn in front of my mother. Smashed in the right corner of the car pretty nicely, but nothing that bad really. The woman was stoned or on medication or something, she passed a sobriety test but she was stumbling and slurring her words. Cop didn't arrest her. Go figure.

Mom didn't go to the ER after it happened even though she had a splitting headache. Again, go figure. She hates doctors. With a passion.

Okay now you're caught up with my line of though as this is happening.

She tells me to rub her forehead and I'm barely touching her and she yells to stop rubbing so hard. That's when I realize, this isn't passing.

I run downstairs to get dad and tell him, mom's in pain, a lot of pain, she needs to go to the ER, NOW.

Dad is instantly upstairs and tells mom we're going after taking one look at her. She puts up a fight, per usual, but dad and I both ignore her. I help her get dressed and brush her hair out really quick.

I throw on a sweatshirt, still in my jeans and a tshirt, and I tell Will I have to go, mom's going to the ER, I'll call him and tell him when I'm there. I ended up texting him everything but he stayed up for me when I got home. I really love that man.

We get to the ER and put mom in a wheelchair, she's keeping her eyes covered with a cloth because the pain from the light is the worst. No one else is there so we're admitted to a room immediately.

And that's when the real nightmare begins.

It took two hours for them to finally give her pain medication, after the doctor had said after an hour of being there it was probably "just" a migraine according to all her symptoms. After that it took another half hour for a CAT scan. Which took all of five minutes.

Again, let me repeat.

WE WERE THE ONLY PEOPLE THERE. IT TOOK AN HR TO SEE THE DOCTOR. ONE OF FIVE DOCTORS THERE. IT TOOK TWO HOURS FOR HER TO GET ANY PAIN MEDICATION. IT TOOK TWO AND A HALF HOURS FOR A CAT SCAN.

After that it took another thirty minutes for a nurse to come in and take vitals after that. I HAD TO FIND A NURSE TO FINALLY TAKE OUT THE IV NEEDLE IN HER HAND!

I go out of the room to ask a nurse to take out the needle so she can get dressed and they're rolling down the halls in wheelchairs and playing solitaire. My pissed off level reached maximum. I asked with as much pose as I could muster if my mother could finally get dressed.

The nurses looked at me blankly then looked at the board behind them and then gave a "Oh yeah she is done," then in an air of authority. "I'll take her IV out for you. After that you just need to wait for paperwork."

No shit. The doctor just said that.

Oh and let me add in another part of the story that PO'd me to no end. Mom said she needed to pee and I ducked out real quick to ask a nurse where the bathroom was. She PUSHES past me into the room and says as loudly as I think she possibly could, "Who needs to go potty?" (Mind you this is to a woman that sound and light are killing her head, this was before the pain medication.) My jaw dropped. I couldn't help but feel an urge to tell her to get the hell out and I'd find it myself.

I mean seriously, what if I had been asking for myself? Or my dad? My mom was fine, I can sure as hell push a wheelchair, she's not an invalid, and this woman had been in the room before.

As soon as my mom heard the nurse I heard her whimper, cover her face in her hands, "no no no please no." And my anger at that nurse made my face flush with heat. I wanted to deck her for embarrassing my mother.

I never want to go back to that hospital in my life. They are the worst nurses I have EVER come across.

Although I must say, there was one lovely young Muslim woman. (She was Somali and had her head covered, we have a lot of Somalian Muslims here so I recognize it easily.) She was so kind and so sweet and gentle with mom. She worked in radiology and was the best part of that visit. A beautiful smile and kind eyes, a very soft tender voice, she even hugged my mother after pushing the bed back in the exam room. She had the heart to be a nurse. She was also the only one to think of offering to tilt the bed up so mom would be more comfortable. She was a blessing.

There are things about being in an ER though that really wake you up to life sometimes. For one, people with power don't tend to use it to help advance others but rather for their own personal ego boost, saw a lot of that last night. And another is, we all have blessings in this world, things to be thankful for.

I had a very brief but very deep experience. One that probably will effect me for the rest of my life.

I'm standing outside the room where mom's getting her CAT scan and I hear the Somalian nurses voice talking to a little boy, saying, "Oh so you want to be a singer? What kind of music?"

"I want to sing jazz," said this little boy of probably about 7-8 yrs old. I looked up and smiled at them as they walked by and I noticed nothing visibly wrong with the boy. No scratches, no burns, no badges, no iv tubes, normal coloring in his face, totally healthy looking child. And then I realized it was 3am. A 7-8 yr old little boy in the ER at that hour that looked and acted completely healthy meant that there was a high possibility that that adorable little boy had something chronic. He was cheerful and smiling and obviously not bothered by what was going on; not his first rodeo.

As soon as I realized the probability of this boy having something that he'll deal with the rest of his life I felt myself choke up. I closed my eyes and whispered a quick prayer for him. I couldn't help but think the nurse that was an angel in disguise, was placed here at that exact moment to be there for that little boy. I found some solace in the thought of there being something greater than all of us at work at that moment, in a virtually silent ER.

There was one other moment that touched me to the core. I took a snapshot in my mind of that moment that will stay with me always.

Mom's head was killing her and being an ER there was nothing she could lean her head back against. Dad had his chair pulled in front of her while she sat on the bed. He pulled her close and rested his head on her shoulder and told her to lean on him. She protested at first but he held on tight and she laid her head on his and wrapped her arms around him.

I felt a lump in my throat as I thought, "This is what marriage is. This is what it's all about. Being there when the person you love is sick, having them lean on you, rest on you, comforting them the best you can. This is love. Having someone you trust to lean on, to hold you, to protect you."

Her my mother was, 1:30am, head splitting open, nauseous, tear stained cheeks, exhausted. And here's my father, tired, having a long day of work to face the next day, forgetting all that to hold her and comfort her. That's love.

I guess I learned a lot last night actually. If you want to get something done, don't be afraid to speak up. Don't trust that anything will take less time, always assume it'll be longer. There is always a greater power working, even if I don't sense it. And that there is nothing more precious than the promise of love given with marriage.

We ended up getting home a quarter to four. I got two hours sleep and then got up to go to work. Mom's at home in bed and I'm here at too-god-damn-early o'clock. But I'll go home early, dad just has to take care of a few errands then he's taking me back home so I can sleep more and watch mom, make sure she's okay.

Oh and guess I should say what's wrong with mom lol The doctor thinks she has mild whiplash and gave her Vicodin, a muscle relaxer, and a prescription for a stronger version of Advil basically. The Vicodin and muscle relaxer she shouldn't take before driving or going to work. That's what the other pain killer is for, that one won't make her drowsy.

But I'm exhausted. My eyes are so tired I can barely see straight so forgive any typos. I can talk but basically I'm on auto-pilot. Not a place I like being.