The last (more than) 24 hours I spent in the hospital. Not that I was sick but my mother was.

My mother (almost 59 years old) is one of those tough moms that rarely get sick. Growing up I only saw her on few occassions to be down with the occasional flu but nothing that home herbal remedy and few OTC pills won't cure. Because she's so tough, she's one of those who won't really complain of being sick until she's almost about to pass out from pain or fever. Otherwise, she would still go about what she routinely does in the house.

(And that's about most of the house chores that she has been lovingly and expertly doing in the last 34 years. Not that her kids are lazy but my mother is your typical full time housewife. Imagine that?!)

However, since my father passed away (2 years this coming October) she isn't her usual self, however much she tries to hide it by doing "business as usual" in the house. To top depression, she hasn't really been sleeping and eating well since my father died and refuses to consult a doctor about her sleeping problems. All that and being postmenopausal made her quite vulnerable to almost everything.

Since Sunday night what she taught was just an ordinary case of LBM (loose bowel movement), turned out to be amoebiasis. Still she sticked it out and just asked to be brought to the hospital on Tuesday morning when she was already too weak to stand up and chilled with fever, and going to poop every 30 minutes or so.

The IV fluids and antibiotics did wonders, less than 24 hours of being confined in the hospital and she was raring to go home. So we were released from the hospital after her second bag of IV fluid but with the rest of her antibiotics for take home.

This was her second hospitalization in her whole life. The very first time was when she gave birth to twins, her third (and fourth) child delivery when she was 40. When she was 25 and 26 years old, she gave birth to me and my brother, respectively, at home with only my aunt and a local widwife in attendance.

That's how tough my mother is but it dawned on me that old age is starting to creep up on her...and this time she needs all the care in the world. I will do my best to give just that.

For starters, tonight she will be on her very first sleeping pill (prescribed by the doctor of course!) because she haven't had a wink since Sunday night when her stomach started to go crazy.