Role Reversal

Yesterday my mum was admitted to the hospital for influenza and pneumonia. The sight of my tiny mum enveloped in one of those huge hospital gowns and hooked up to oxygen, IV lines etc... eerily reminded me of my teenage days when she battled colon cancer and had a series of major surgeries. Not fun. When I got to her room yesterday she was struggling to sit up and talk to me (she's a tough wee Scottish woman, as many of you know!) and I had to make her lie back down, then I tucked the blankets around her and adjusted the oxygen line. For a moment our eyes met and I had this feeling of deja vu going back to when I was seven-years old and involved in an accident which landed me up in Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for two months (and later helped me guilt my dad into getting me a rabbit!). I remembered being in a similar bed and my mum tucking the blankets in around me and adjusting the oxygen mask. Yesterday there was a feeling that I finally crossed the Rubicon of adulthood with all its joys, anguish, and responsibilities. For just one second I wanted to switch roles and be that 7-year old kid and not the 31-year old kid watching her mum in pain in a big hospital bed.