I couldn’t remember. The days had started blurring together sometime around March, each one the same routine of rationing whatever Victoria left me, of pretending I wasn’t hungry when my stomach cramped.
“I eat enough,” I said, but my voice came out weak.
“You’re coming inside,” Sarah said gently. “Please don’t fight me on this.”
The emergency room was busy for a Tuesday afternoon. Sarah checked me in, and when the intake nurse asked what brought us in today, my daughter said I’d been experiencing dizziness and fatigue.
It wasn’t entirely a lie. I had been dizzy, especially when I stood up too quickly. I’d just gotten used to it.
They took me back within twenty minutes. A young doctor who looked barely older than my grandson examined me, asking questions while a nurse took my blood pressure and temperature.
When they had me step on the scale, I watched Sarah’s face as the numbers appeared.
One hundred and four pounds. I used to weigh one hundred thirty-six.
“Mrs. Chin,” the doctor said carefully. “When did you start losing weight?”
“I haven’t been very hungry lately,” I said, which was another lie. I was always hungry.
Sarah pulled out her phone and showed the doctor a photo. It took me a moment to recognize myself from last Christmas, smiling at the camera with full cheeks and bright eyes.
The woman in that picture looked like someone I used to know.
The Medical Documentation
The doctor ordered blood work and a full panel of tests. While we waited for the results, a woman in a gray cardigan knocked softly on the door.
She introduced herself as Patricia, a hospital social worker, and her kind eyes made something crack open inside my chest.
“Your daughter mentioned you might be having some difficulties at home,” Patricia said, sitting in the chair beside my bed. “Would you feel comfortable talking about that?”
I looked at Sarah, who nodded encouragingly, and suddenly I couldn’t hold it in anymore. The words came spilling out about Victoria taking my pension, about the empty refrigerator, about how I’d been trying to make a bag of rice last two weeks.
About how my son just stood there and let it happen.
Patricia listened without interrupting, occasionally making notes on her tablet, and I found myself crying for the first time in months.
When the doctor returned with my test results, his expression was grave.
“Mrs. Chin, you’re severely malnourished. Your vitamin D is almost nonexistent. Your B12 levels are critical. You’ve lost thirty-two pounds in six months, and your body is essentially eating itself to survive.”
Sarah was photographing everything. The test results on the computer screen, the doctor’s notes, the nutrition assessment sheet Patricia was filling out.
I watched her document it all with a methodical precision that reminded me she’d inherited my attention to detail.
“Mom needs to be admitted,” the doctor said, but Sarah shook her head.
“No, I’m taking her home with me. But I need copies of everything. Every test result, every medical note, every piece of documentation showing her condition.”
The doctor and Patricia exchanged a look I couldn’t quite read.
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