In real life, even House doesn't have the answers.

I am sitting at the foot of my mom's hospital bed watching her sleep, the green blanket from home which lay over her rising and falling with her breath. I am comforted by the motion of her breath. I am grateful for its ease this moment.

Dan is next to me working on a crossword puzzle. The room is lit only by midday sun sneaking through the cracks of the closed window panels. We're hoping she sleeps for a while as the three nights she has spent here so far have not provided much rest. The deepness of her current sleep is aided by the sedative drugs she was given this morning when she underwent a procedure in which a scope was inserted through her mouth and snaked down to her left bronchus for the purpose of getting pictures as well as lung samples. Even though the procedure went smoothly, we decided we should take shifts watching her sleep in case there are any complications. It is expected that she will cough more following the procedure; even cough up blood.

That was a minute of writing I got in yesterday before family started showing up to visit with my mom and the day busied up.

I am happy to say that my mom seems to have improved from where she was these last few days, from where she was even yesterday morning.

Dan's wrap-up was pretty right on (and, of course, adorable). That is, unless any of you caught the first version before I corrected it in which Dan said my mom had a pulmonary edema, a much more serious diagnosis than the pulmonary embolism she actually had. As the pulmonologist explained to us regarding emboli, "Tiny ones cause pain, big ones kill you." My mom's, thankfully, was small and thus she is still alive.

I cannot yet write at length about what has transpired over the last few days---soon I'll have to shower up and head back to the hospital---but I can at least summarize where things stand now while I sit here having my morning coffee alone in my parents' kitchen at my mom's seat at the table. My mom went into the hospital with chest pain, utter weakness and fever on Wednesday. The chest pain was attributed to the pulmonary embolism (which is, apparently, common with lung cancer), the weakness was due to chemo and general dehydration, and the fever---well, they're still trying to figure that out like, as we've said many times, it's our very own episode of House. While fever is often seen with pulmonary embolisms, they have to rule out infection which is of particular importance because my mom's immune system is so compromised by the chemo. All testing has ruled out the presence of bacteria, but the reason they did the bronchoscopy is to be sure there isn't an infection hiding behind the tumor. While in there, they saw just how much the tumor was obstructing my mom's airway (thus causing breathing difficulty, the collapse of lung tissue and the potential for infection) so they may have to do some radiation soon to shrink the blockage.

This is the science of things. Decisions will be made this week regarding radiation, chemo, etc. Surgery is pretty well off the table. Science.

Since Wednesday morning when my mom was admitted, science has been very much second to life and emotion. Conversations were had that I never imagined having. Many tearful phone calls and worried text messages were exchanged. My sister Katie will be flying in tomorrow.

But, it seems that for the time being, the worst of this particular episode is over. Last night my mom ate an entire sandwich and bowl of soup for dinner---the most she's eaten in days. The color has returned to her face and she was sharp enough yesterday to bust my and everyone else's balls.

"Mom's back," was how my dad put it.

So now I'm going to head back to the hospital to see her. Yesterday morning when I raced there to be sure I would get a chance to see her before she went under for her procedure (a measure of the sort of just-in-case that is hard to believe is reality) I wasn't going to see that mom. Glad she's back today.

Whether things will stay this way, whether this is the beginning of a years-long road or the beginning of the end, we have no idea. Stripped of its platitudinal essence and from its spot on book marks and coffee mugs, the "this" of "this moment" is truly all we've got.

So off to the shower I go.

Thanks all for the support and prayers and love for GiG.